me  HEALTH 

of  the 


i      if)      j  .7 


W 


*  hi  * 


CHANCE 


THE  HEALTH 
OF  THE  TEACHER 


THE  HEALTH 
OF  THE  TEACHER 


BY 
WILLIAM  ESTABROOK  CHANCELLOR 

Author  of  "Our  Schools,"  etc. 


CHICAGO 

FORBES  &  COMPANY 

1919 


*1 


COPYRIGHT,    1919     BY  -^L^ 


FORBES  AND  COMPANY  V  *" 


^ 


, 


C7"*0  the  students  whom  I  have 
had  for  many  summers  in 
courses  in  hygiene  for  teachers, 
at  various  colleges,  I  dedicate 
this  book  in  the  hope  that  it  may 
help  some  other  teachers  also  to 
get  well  and  to  stay  so. 


84 


PREFACE 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  guide  teachers  in  the 
care  of  their  own  health  while  teaching.  The  need  for 
it  arises  from  several  sources.  First,  the  occupation  has 
very  high  rates  both  of  deaths  and  of  diseases.  Second, 
teachers  read  too  many  school  physiologies,  which  have  in 
view  the  public  needs  of  children  and  youth  and  which 
do  not  teach  the  whole  truth  for  adults.  Third,  such 
books  as  have  appeared  for  adult  teachers  have  not  been 
written  by  men  with  medical  training  and  experience 
but  by  teachers  of  hygiene  who  have  considered  the  sub- 
ject pedagogically  rather  than  medically.  Fourth,  every 
book  so  far  issued  associates  public  sanitation  with  per- 
sonal hygiene,  thereby  adding  to  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility felt  by  the  already  burdened  teacher.  The  present 
discussion  is  meant  to  be  essentially  different  in  its  mo- 
tives and  purposes. 

The  aims  of  personal  hygiene  are  these,  viz : 

1.  To  increase  strength,  health  and  efficiency  for  daily 
work. 

2.  To  thwart  and,  if  possible,  overcome  tendencies  to 
diseases  both  self-originated  and  infectious. 

3.  To  quicken  and  develop  joy  in  being  alive. 

4.  To  postpone  death. 

In  dealing  with  this  subject,  the  case  method  followed 
herein  has  many  advantages,  of  which  the  greatest  is  its 
reality,  its  truthfulness.  By  means  of  the  final  chapters, 
the  index  and  the  table  of  contents  the  advantage  of  the 
topical  treatment  is  recovered.     The  ills  of  teachers  are 


viii  PREFACE 

not  characteristically  the  common  ills  of  humanity  in  the 
same  relative  proportions  but  mostly  peculiar  to  the  oc- 
cupation. So  true  is  this  that  any  physician  with  a  con- 
siderable practice  among  teachers  assumes  when  seeing 
a  new  patient  in  his  office  for  the  first  time  that  probably 
the  trouble  is  one  of  a  small  definite  list.  From  some  ills, 
teachers  almost  never  suffer. 

This  book  is  the  outgrowth  of  early  studies  in  physi- 
ology and  hygiene  and  medical  training  followed  by  thirty 
years  of  educational  experience.  For  its  material, 
whether  theoretical,  clinical  or  consultative,  it  must  speak 
for  itself.  The  text  is  based  upon  systematic  lecture 
courses  given  for  many  consecutive  summers  in  the  Col- 
lege of  Wooster,  Denison  University,  and  the  Cleveland 
School  of  Education.  I  sincerely  hope  that  it  will  help 
its  readers  to  get  well  and  to  keep  well  through  more 
intelligent  resistance  to  the  physically  destructive  influ- 
ences of  next  to  the  most  severe  of  all  learned  occupa- 
tions. Medicine  alone  has  more  trials,  though  not  a 
higher  death  rate. 

The  inner  purpose  of  the  book  is  to  help  teachers 
maintain  health  despite  the  necessity  to  accommodate 
themselves  often  to  seriously  unhealthy  surroundings  and 
regimen.  It  is,  however,  well  for  us  all  to  remember 
that  there  are  other  occupations  with  yet  greater  diffi- 
culties to  be  met  and  overcome  such  as  medicine,  nursing, 
home  management  on  a  farm  and  some  lines  of  factory, 
store  and  office  employment.  Let  us,  therefore,  try  to 
endure  with  healthy  cheerfulness  what  for  the  present 
perhaps  we  cannot  change. 

And  let  us  not  imagine  that  from  the  point  of  view  of 
hygiene  or  of  any  other  art  or  science,  even  the  best  of 
modern  schoolhouses  or  the  latest  of  modern  school 
courses  and  programs  is  a  finality.  Mankind  is  at  the 
beginning,  not  the  end  of  the  discovery  of  truth.     But 


PREFACE  ix 

even  such  truth  as  we  now  have  is  but  narrowly  dis- 
tributed and  but  poorly  utilized.  In  these  pages,  I  have 
endeavored  to  present  in  untechnical,  non-medical  lan- 
guage as  far  as  possible  some  of  the  most  approved  prin- 
ciples and  practices  of  physicians  and  of  hygienists  for 
the  maintenance  and  protection  of  the  personal  health  of 
teach- 
in  a  period  when  from  the  world  war  we  have  all 
learned  much  regarding  health  and  sanitation  and  when 
with  the  timely  urgency  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Education  we  are  trying  to  improve  the  hygiene  condi- 
tions for  our  children  and  youth,  it  is  expedient  for  all 
of  us  who  are  teachers  to  bring  our  own  health  and 
strength  up  to  high  efficiency. 

W.  E.  C. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
PRINCIPLES  OF  DIAGNOSIS  AND  CASES 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface vii 

I    The  Modern  View  of  Health 15 

II    The  Instinct  to  be  Well 26 

III  Differential  Diagnosis  of  Health  Conditions  33 

a.  Race     and     Stock,    b.  Temperament,    c.  Age. 
d.  Sex. 

IV  Spinal  Curvature.    Case  i 55 

V    Imperfect  Digestion.    Case  2 61 

VI    Nervous  Wreckage.    Case  3 70 

VII    Ignorance  of  Lung  and  Other  Hygiene.    Cases 

4  and  5 75 

VIII    Fatal  Overwork.    Case  6 80 

IX    Errors  of  Parents  in  Childhood  Care.    Case  7  .  85 

X    Deficient  Physique  for  Teaching.    Case  8      .     .  92 

XI    Insufficiency  of  Mind  for  Teaching.    Case    9  .  07 

XII    Burning  the  Candle  too  Fast.    Case  10     .     .     .104 

XIII  Excessive  Anxiety  About  Health.    Case  11   .     .  109 

XIV  Surgical  Relief.    Case  12 113 

XV    School  Epidemics.    Case  13 115 

XVI    Ignorance  of  Sex  Aberrations  in  Others.    Cases 

14  and  15 120 

XVII    Too  Successful  and  Obliging.    Case  16      .     .     .  124 

XVIII    A  Victim  of  too  Much  "  Sanitation."    Case  17  .  128 

XIX    Overeating.    Cases  18  to  21 131 


Ik 


CONTENTS 


PART  II 
THE  RATIONALE  OF  HEALTH  CONTROL 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XX     Sleep I37 

XXI    Diet I46 

XXII    Drink 164 

XXIII  Exercise 170 

XXIV  Bathing 184 

XXV    Clothing  and  Footwear 188 

XXVI  Periodicities,   Including   Menstruation       .     .  200 

XXVII    Care  of  the  Teeth 217 

XXVIII    Care  of  the  Eyes 222 

XXIX    Care  of  the  Ears 227 

XXX    Care  of  the  Voice  and  Throat 231 

XXXI     Care  of  the  Skin 236 

XXXII     Care  of  the  Hair 244 

XXXIII  Care  of  the  Feet 248 

XXXIV  Relaxation  and  Amusement 256 

XXXV  When  to  Resort  to  Medicine  and  Surgery  .     .  262 

XXXVI    Choice  of  Habitat  and  Home .  267 

XXXVII    What  is  Worry?   .     .     .    _ 284 

XXXVIII    Winning  Old  Age:     Summary 296 

Index 303 


PART  I 
PRINCIPLES  OF    DIAGNOSIS  AND  CASES 


"  I  seek  to  distinguish  the  patterns  of  life  according  to 
the  natures  of  different  men." 

The  Laws.  bk.  VII.  Plato 


THE  HEALTH 
OF  THE  TEACHER 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  MODERN  VIEW  OF  HEALTH 

SUDDENLY,  as  with  a  start,  the  teachers  of  America 
have  awakened  to  the  truth  that  one  very  important 
subject  concerning  themselves  has  been  virtually  ignored 
in  to  to, —  that  of  personal  anatomy,  physiology  and  hy- 
giene. And  even  the  teachers  who  have  become  awake 
suspect  that  what  little  they  know  is  very,  very  little  com- 
pared with  the  available  scientific  knowledge  of  the  medi- 
cal profession. 

Every  man,  woman  and  child  desires  life  and  yet 
more  life;  desires  overflowing  life,  for  life  is  joy, 
power,  self-realization,  accomplishment  and  success,  and 
brings  approval  from  others.  We  delight  in  others  who 
are  well ;  and  in  being  well  ourselves.  Life  is  surplus 
energy,  more  than  we  need  for  mere  existence;  life  is 
radiant. 

The  health  of  the  human  cell  is  the  key  to  life. 
A  living  cell  is  the  most  marvellous  of  all  things  in 
Nature.  It  converts  what  it  chooses  from  its  environ- 
ment into  itself  and  thereby  registers  life.  It  chooses 
and  rejects.  It  grows ;  it  produces  one  or  more  cells  like 
itself;  it  lives  its  time,  whatever  that  may  be,  and  dies. 
It  thinks ;  it  wills ;  doubtless,  it  feels ;  it  certainly  works. 
Cells  build  all  animate  creatures  including  man. 

15 


16   .  .  ..THE.H.EALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Scientists  tell  us  that  a  normal  human  body  contains 
three  trillion  cells,— 3,000,000,000,000 ;  that  the  spinal 
cord  alone  contains  four  billion  cells  and  the  brain  seven 
billion  cells,  making  a  total  of  eleven  billion  cells, —  11,- 
000,000,000, —  in  the  main  structure  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem. Such  numbers  are1  fabulous  and  incomprehensible. 
This  means  that  the  direct  nervous  control  requires  three 
per  cent  of  all  the  cells  of  the  body.  This,  however,  does 
not  account  for  the  vast  number  of  nerve  cells  in  the 
muscular  and  other  tissues,  doing  a  thousand  things  fc- 
us  from  noticing  temperature  to  winking  the  eyelid. 

Whether  in  a  difficult  world  one  seeks  to  recover  health 
or  simply  to  maintain  it,  the  first  requirement  of  all  is 
to  realize  that  every  cell  in  one's  body  has  an  appetite 
for  material  to  renew  and  replace  itself  according  to  its 
nature  but  that  one  may  help  or  defeat  these  various  cells 
in  their  natural  and  necessary  interest  in  their  own  activ- 
ities by  anything  and  everything  that  one  eats,  breathes, 
drinks,  does  and  endures.  This  is  the  secret  of  health- 
consciousness. 

THE    BLOOD   STREAM 

There  flows  in  every  man  a  river  of  life  and  of  death, 
the  blood-stream,  at  once  a  current  of  foods  and  a  sewer 
of  worn-out,  decaying  cells  and  tissues.  In  so  far  as 
it  is  a  stream  of  nutriment,  we  have  very  large  and  active 
control  of  it;  three  successive  hygienic  meals,  with  pure 
water  and  enough  fresh  air,  make  a  deal  of  difference 
as  contrasted  with  a  bad  diet  for  even  one  day.  But  in 
so  far  as  the  blood  current  is  full  of  the  waste  of  the  body, 
the  case  is  very  different.  It  may  take  weeks  and  even 
months  to  clean  the  sewer ;  it  may  prove  impossible  to 
do  so,  in  which  case  death  is  inevitable  from  the  defile- 
ment of  the  circulatory  system.  Important  as  food  is, 
relatively  to  other  health  concerns  it  is  emphasized  in 


THE  MODERN  VIEW  OF  HEALTH  17 

common  talk  and  in  current  periodicals  and  in  books  for 
general  use,  a  thousand  times  too  much. 

Every  cell  in  every  human  body  has  an  instinct  for 
health,  for  normal  functioning. 

This  is  the  key  also  to  the  modern  system  of  therapy 
in  the  cure  of  wounds, —  to  keep  the  tissue  clean  and  to 
let  it  heal  itself.  The  now  famous  Carrel-Dakin  treat- 
ment as  shown  in  the  cure  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
wounded  men  in  the  world-war  is  predicated  upon  this 
proposition  that  Nature  means  every  man  to  get  well 
and  that  every  cell  knows  its  own  normal  and  proper 
social  relations  with  other  cells.  The  hostile  germs  that 
infect  wounds,  cause  pus  and  develop  gangrene  must 
be  cleaned  away. 

That  man  or  woman  who  once  looks  out  upon  the 
world  of  his  or  her  own  body  as  through  a  new  window 
full  of  light  finds  health  and  power  by  understanding 
the  true  meaning  of  the  cell. 

The  various  cells  of  the  human  body  have  various 
sizes  and  weights,  natures  and  histories,  and  normal 
terms  of  life.  We  know  now  that  it  is  not  true  that  the 
entire  human  body  is  renewed  once  in  seven  years  or 
once  in  seven  months  or  once  in  seven  weeks.  Different 
organs,  different  systems,  different  parts  of  them,  dif- 
ferent persons  of  the  various  races,  stocks,  breeds,  ages, 
sexes,  living  in  different  climates,  doing  different  work, 
eating  different  foods, —  some  happy,  some  sad,  some 
well,  some  ill, —  have  their  different  rates  for  cell-growth, 
life,  and  decay ;  all,  however,  within  limits. 

Once  built,  the  enamel  of  the  teeth,  a  cell-product  but 
not  in  any  sense  cellular,  never  is  replaced.  Its  wear  is 
irretrievable  save  by  mechanical  dentistry.  A  silver 
plate  may  be  fastened  upon  a  solid  osseous  structure  to 
stay  there  a  score  of  years. 

At  the  other  extreme,  true  muscle  breaks  down  and  is 


18    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

rebuilt  very  rapidly  under  exercise  conditions, —  in  young 
manhood  within  forty-eight  hours,  and  in  childhood  even 
more  rapidly.  No  other  tissue,  however,  completes  the 
cycle  of  its  cell  life  so  rapidly  as  does  the  grey  matter  of 
the  nervous  system.  This  is  one  reason  why  the  shatter- 
ing of  the  nerves  is  so  serious;  it  means  that  their  in- 
stinct for  self-renewal  has  been  defeated.  Any  healthy, 
normal  brain  is  eager  to  cure  itself ;  the  liver  or  the 
deltoid  muscle  of  the  upper  arm  is  by  no  means  so  eager 
or  so  efficient. 

Anyone  may  test  the  rates  of  renewal  in  one's  own  body. 
For  example,  how  many  days  are  required  to  grow  an 
entirely  new  finger  nail  ?  In  most  persons,  the  nails  grow 
faster  upon  the  right  hand  than  upon  the  left, —  in  the 
ratio  of  5  to  4;  and  also  in  most  persons,  the  nails  of 
the  forefingers  grow  most  rapidly.  For  a  boy  of  ten 
years,  three  weeks  is  an  average  period  for  a  complete 
new  nail  upon  the  right  forefinger ;  for  a  man  of  twenty- 
five  four  weeks ;  for  a  woman  of  the  same  years,  the  re- 
newal is  one-tenth  faster. 

In  some  persons,  superficial  cuts  upon  the  skin  heal 
fast.  A  clean  cut  an  inch  long  and  completely  through 
the  entire  structure  into  the  flesh  may  be  healed  and 
firm  in  ten  days.     A  slow  healing  would  be  twice  as  long. 


THE    NORM 

The  original  germ  plasm  has  an  architectural  life  set- 
ting out  to  realize  an  ideal,  its  norm,  according  to  a  par- 
ticular grouping  of  ancestral  traits, —  that  is,  according 
to  the  elements  in  the  original  materials.  This  life  made 
of  whatever  environment  it  had  as  helpful  and  agree- 
able a  home  as  it  could.  It  was  intelligent  enough  to  place 
its  cells  and  to  organize  its  bones  here,  nerves  there,  hair, 
skin,  teeth,  muscles,  internal  organs  and  all  else  accord- 


THE  MODERN  VIEW  OF  HEALTH  19 

ing  to  the  proper  fashion  of  each.  In  most  cases,  with 
better  materials  and  less  interfered  with,  the  life  archi- 
tect would  have  made  a  much  better  job  of  it. 

A  very  positive  principle  of  personal  hygiene  follows 
from  this  truth :  "  Hands  off,"  let  Nature  have  her 
way,  "  physiological  rest." 

There  is  a  famous  diagnostician  and  consultant  in 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  of  whom  it  has  been  truthfully  said  a 
thousand  times,  "  Yes,  we  called  him  in,  and  he  went 
over  the  patient,  said  '  H'm/  and  took  up  his  bag  to  de- 
part. Then  we  asked, — '  What  shall  we  do  next  ?  '  and 
he  replied,  4  Do !  Why,  nothing.  Can't  you  see  that  the 
patient  is  already  getting  well?  Let  him  alone.  Let 
him  sleep.     Good  day ! '  " 

What  is  the  biological  significance  of  this  "physiologi- 
cal rest,"  but  this  —  that  non-interference,  together  with 
cleanliness,  the  right  food  and  plenty  of  quiet  gives  Nature 
the  opportunity  to  do  what  she  understands  far,  far  bet- 
ter than  any  human  mind  possibly  can  ? 

Every  woman  should  remember  what  Adelina  Patti 
said  was  the  secret  of  her  fresh  voice  in  advanced  age, — 
"  At  least  once  a  month,  I  go  to  bed  and  stay  there  quiet 
and  happy  for  thirty-six  hours." 

Holy  Mother  Earth  !  Sacred  Mother  Nature !  When 
agitated  American  womanhood  and  hustling,  feverish 
American  manhood  get  the  meaning  of  admiring  love  for 
Earth  that  feeds  us  and  for  Nature  that  breeds  us,  our 
womanhood  and  manhood  both  will  prosper  exceedingly. 
Though  knowing  nothing  of  modern  science,  the  best  of 
the  ancient  Greeks  fathomed  the  secret  of  the  proper 
relation  of  man  to  Nature, —  which  is  trust,  confidence, 
dependence.  The  glorious  perfection  of  the  human  form 
as  incomparably  displayed  in  Greek  art  was  matched  by 
the  finest  of  their  men  athletes  and  probably  by  their 
women  also. 


20    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

We  should  get  ourselves  into  right  relations  with  the 
bread  and  meat,  with  the  sun  and  air  and  the  night,  with 
force  and  electricity  and  time,  with  the  fields  and  the 
cattle,  by  all  of  which  we  live.  Any  other  view  of  the 
universe  is  that  of  unintelligent  barbarians.  Before  we 
get  through  reforming  American  education,  we  shall  dis- 
cover that  much  of  our  practice  is  unnatural  and  barbar- 
ous,—  in  keeping  with  Huns  and  other  mechanical  out- 
laws from  true  civilization  rather  than  with  the  wise. 

As  the  cells  build  up  the  organs  from  their  own  inner 
principles,  so  the  body  as  a  whole  has  its  own  inner  prin- 
ciples, its  habits  and  traits  and  ideals.  Only  second  in 
importance  to  the  truth  that  every  cell  has  a  life  of  its 
own  and  may  and  should  be  depended  upon  to  live  aright 
is  the  truth  that  the  body  of  itself  understands  how  to 
do  a  wonderful  variety  of  actions  wisely.  It  has  taken 
man  until  these  last  few  years  to  discover  the  true  func- 
tions of  the  ductless  glands  in  co-ordinating  the  whole 
man.  Explaining  these  ductless  glands  belongs  rather  to 
physiology  and  to  anatomy  than  to  hygiene,  and  reference 
may  be  made  here  only  to  the  operations  of  three  of 
these  sets  of  glands  for  the  illumination  of  personal 
health-control. 

The  human  body  has  for  its  important  systems  these, 
viz. — 

i.  Nervous. 

2.  Alimentary. 

3.  Circulatory, —  blood  and  lymph. 

4.  Muscular. 

5.  Osseous. 

6.  Respiratory. 

THE   DUCTLESS    GLANDS 

Until  the  past  few  years,  it  was  more  or  less  of  a 
mystery  how  these  various  systems  were  so  wonderfully 


THE  MODERN  VIEW  OF  HEALTH         21 

co-ordinated  and  co-operative.  The  discoveries  made 
have  been  quite  as  illuminating  as  the  discovery  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood  with  the  exact  functioning  of 
the  heart,  not  so  much  as  a  pump  but  rather  as  a  gov- 
ernor or  regulator.  The  discoveries  of  interest  here  con- 
cern the  thyroid  glands,  the  suprarenal  glands,  and  the 
pituitary  glands. 

Growth  depends  upon  the  proper  activity  of  the  thy- 
roid gland.  The  child  with  too  small  a  thyroid  or  one  too 
sluggish  fails  to  grow  as  if  from  what  we  used  to  call 
"  sheer  inanition."  What  is  needed  is  that  from  time  to 
time,  there  shall  be  released  from  this  ductless  gland  its 
secretion  "  thyroidin  "  to  stir  up  the  cells  to  increase  their 
number.  But  the  child  with  too  large  or  active  thyroid 
glands  is  restless  and  over-excited,  growing  tall  but  thin. 

Even  in  adult  life,  one  needs  vital  but  not  too  active 
thyroid  glands.  Tight  collars,  over-dressed  throats,  too 
much  use  of  the  voice,  cramping  of  the  throat,  severe  cold 
as  from  wind  upon  an  exposed  chest  and  throat  —  each 
of  these  conditions  is  bad  for  the  thyroid  and  therefore 
for  all  growth  and  for  all  renewal  of  tissue.  It  is  not 
necessary  for  the  health  that  thyroidin  shall  always  be 
present  in  the  bloodstream,  but  it  is  necessary  that  its 
presence  there  shall  be  recurrent  and  periodic.  And  prop- 
erly developed  and  functioning  thyroid  glands  attend  to 
the  needs  of  health  and  growth  in  just  this  way. 

Exopthalmic  goitre,  of  which  the  external  symptoms 
are  a  swollen  throat  and  bulging  eyes,  is  the  direct  and 
now  familiar  result  of  errant  thyroid  glands.  Dwarf- 
ism, cretonism,  gigantism  and  several  other  abnormalities 
of  >ize  and  of  functioning  are  now  known  to  be  due  to 
HU1N  glands. 

The  suprarenal  glands  determine  the  physical  proc- 
esses and  stages  of  our  emotions.  Anger,  fear,  hate,  elo- 
quence,  ecstasy,  hysteria,  and  other  such  high-wrought 


22         THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

states  are  due  to  the  activities  of  these  glands.  From  the 
physical  point  of  view,  in  the  main,  a  cold,  quiet,  reticent 
nature  is  only  the  evidence  of  inactive  suprarenal  glands. 
A  glowing  enthusiasm  followed  by  equal  depression  is  the 
evidence  of  perhaps  too  active  release  of  adrenalin  into 
the  bloodstream. 

A  teacher  who  meets  seven  classes  a  day  and  teaches 
each  "  for  all  he  is  worth  "  wears  out  accordingly.  Clini- 
cal tests  show  that  a  normal  adult  requires  twenty  min- 
utes to  steam  up  from  the  effects  of  a  release  of  adrenalin 
and  more  than  an  hour  to  cool  down  —  which  means  to 
get  the  adrenalin  back  out  of  the  blood.  He  should 
have  at  least  an  hour  of  comparative  quiet  before  being 
excited  again. 

Every  modern  physician  knows  that  four  agitations  in 
an  entire  day  of  twenty- four  hours,  perhaps  two  between 
breakfast  and  the  noon  meal,  one  in  the  afternoon  and 
one  in  the  evening, — constitute  the  maximum  that  a 
healthy  man  can  stand  and  remain  healthy  day  in  and 
day  out  for  years.  "  Too  much  excitement "  means  too 
many  doses  of  adrenalin.  It  is  what  causes  the  exhausted 
school  teacher  to  drag  through  her  Fridays.  It  sends 
many  an  actress  to  the  sanitarium.  It  has  persuaded 
many  a  lawyer  to  "  take  to  drink,"  which  stupefies. 

Sluggish  or  inert  adrenal  glands  cause  and  are  caused 
by  a  monotonous  life.  A  person  so  afflicted  drags  a 
dreary  round  of  days.  How  to  rectify  a  bad  adrenal 
condition  does  not  come  deep  within  the  ranges  of  hy- 
giene but  a  few  suggestions  may  prove  profitable. 

For  excessive  activity  of  the  suprarenal  glands,  one 
should  substitute  cereal  protein  for  meat  protein;  avoid 
animated  crowds  and  groups ;  read  light  or  humorous 
literature;  take  easy  outdoor  exercise  (no  automobile 
vibrations) ;  drink  milk  and  water,  and  nothing  else  and 
cut  down  on  sugar. 


THE  MODERN  VIEW  OF  HEALTH         23 

For  inactivity,  the  opposite  courses  are  indicated. 
Meats  seem  to  stimulate  all  the  ductless  glands.  Con- 
versation, public  speech,  social  relations,  serious  reading, 
hard  exercise  such  as  horseback  riding,  tea,  coffee,  choc- 
olate, the  alcoholic  stimulants  in  their  first  impression  and 
sugar,  one  and  all  stir  up  these  glands,  especially  the 
suprarenals. 

Contrary  to  the  general  supposition,  these  glands  just 
above  the  kidneys  have  no  more  to  do  with  them  than 
with  any  other  organs.  Nature  found  the  location  con- 
venient. Adrenalin  affects  powerfully  first  the  heart  and 
solar  plexus  nerves  and  then  the  sympathetic  nervous 
system.  Blushing,  mental  confusion,  sex-excitement, 
noisiness,  boasting,  and  many  other  such  manifestations 
are  caused  by,  accompany,  or  result  from  activities  of  the 
suprarenal  glands. 


FREE   ADVICE   TO   TEACHERS 

It  so  happens  that  teachers  display  many  symptoms  of 
unusual  and  unfavorable  adrenalin  disturbance.  In  con- 
sequence, those  who  ignorantly  give  advice  to  individual 
teachers  imperil  them  still  further.  So  much  general  and 
free  advice  comes  to  teachers,  and  teachers  are  so  serious 
and  so  desirous  to  improve  that  many  experiments  upon 
them  follow,  and,  of  course,  with  but  few  exceptions  they 
result  unfavorably. 

Among  the  more  common  health  hints  to  teachers  are 
these,  viz. — 

1.  More  exercise. 

2.  Social  evenings. 

3.  Church  or  other  activities. 

4.  Travel. 

Now  all  of  these  may  perhaps  be  good  for  a  person 
with  a  "  torpid  liver,"  which  diagnosis  sometimes  is  a 


24    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

mistake  for  a  deficiency  in  the  suprarenal  glands ;  but  any 
one  of  them  may  prove  highly  injurious  to  a  person  al- 
ready suffering  from  excessive  frequency  and  amount  of 
released  adrenalin. 

As  for  the  pituitary  gland,  at  the  base  of  the  brain,  we 
know  that  a  deficiency  of  its  secretion  causes  one  to  de- 
velop thin,  blue  flesh  and  fat  and  to  be  nervously  weak, 
while  an  excess  of  its  secretion  causes  thick,  red  flesh 
and  fat  and  high  passions. 


THE    NEW    BIOCHEMISTRY 

The  modern  view,  therefore,  of  the  hygiene  of  the  in- 
dividual proceeds  from  increased  knowledge  of  and  re- 
spect for  the  particular  cells  charged  with  characteristic 
functions  and  from  new  knowledge  relating  to  the  co- 
ordination and  working  together  of  all  cells,  tissues,  or- 
gans, systems  through  the  activities  of  the  ductless  glands. 
It  is  not  that  the  old  knowledge  of  the  chemical  actions 
of  digestion,  assimilation,  metabolism,  of  the  processes 
of  cells,  neurons,  ganglions,  efferent  and  afferent  nerves, 
or  of  the  pulse  and  of  respiration  and  much  of  the  other 
physiology  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  has  been 
superseded  because  it  is  false.  It  is  that  the  old  knowl- 
edge has  been  supplemented  by  much  new  knowledge 
and  that  truths  concerning  health  have  taken  on  new 
values. 

Starting  from  two  sources,  the  sperm  and  the  ovum, 
one  being  Yeoo  in.  or  less  in  diameter,  the  other  H50  in.,  the 
human  being  finally  attains  at  forty  or  fifty  years  of 
age  a  height  of  (say)  68  inches,  a  chest  circumference  of 
36  inches,  and  a  weight  of  155  pounds, —  all  under  law 
and  reason.  The  soul  or  mind  (considered  as  i4  intellect  " 
or  ''spirit")  appears  to  be  a  visitor  in  a  living  body 
perfectly  able  to  take  care  of  itself, —  a  body  that  ap- 


THE  MODERN  VIEW  OF  HEALTH         25 

pears  rather  to  be  victimized  than  to  be  helped  by  the 
visitor,  who  may  foolishly  try  to  keep  it  awake  too  many 
hours,  or  to  feed  it  too  much,  or  to  subject  it  to  cold 
or  to  excitement,  or  even  to  stimulate  its  appetites  and 
instincts  unnaturally  by  drugs  or  by  external  pressures  or 
by  deliberate  imaginings.  All  this  incredibly  vast  growth 
has  been  organized  by  the  relatively  few,  so  few  cells  in 
the  parent-germ  plasm.  The  principle  holds  as  to  the 
most  serious  situations,  such  as  the  attacks  of  the  typhoid 
germ  upon  Peyer's  Patches  in  the  bowel ;  recovery  from 
the  tearings  of  childbirth ;  and  wounds  to  lungs  or 
stomach  from  bullets  and  shells  in  battle.  In  some,  heal- 
ing is  rapid ;  in  others,  it  is  slow.  Every  organ  and  sys- 
tem has  its  own  rate  but  within  time  limits.  A  wound 
that  does  not  get  well  within  a  maximum  time-limit  is 
unlikely  to  get  well  at  all.  This  is  true  of  many  a  hernia 
and  also  of  many  a  white  tubercular  patch  in  the  lungs 
or  in  the  hips. 

Surgeons  have  succeeded  in  grafting  bone  into  place; 
they  transfer  muscles  and  skin  freely;  they  build  new 
jaws.  Some  limits  to  these  miracles  will  be  found;  but 
there  seems  as  yet  to  be  no  limit  within  the  possibilities 
of  this  great  principle  of  Nature  working  in  man  as  in 
every  other  animal  that  for  practical  purposes  every  cell 
has  a  mind  of  its  own. 

Here  flows  the  blood  stream.  The  liver  appropriates 
what  it  needs  and  makes  liver  tissue;  it  does  not  make 
brain  tissue  or  when  sane,  fat  or  connective  tissue.  The 
boy  of  nineteen  gradually  stops  increasing  the  spinal  col- 
umn cartilage  and  bone  because  his  spinal  cord  like  a 
good  architect  silently  determines, — "  This  is  enough." 

Such  is  the  philosophy  of  the  new  biochemistry  that  is 
reconciling  chemistry  and  biology  and  giving  to  man  a 
new  interpretation  of  himself. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  INSTINCT  TO  BE  WELL 

SOMESTHESIA  is  the  feeling  that  one  has  regarding 
the  state  of  one's  body,  and  is  the  proper  expression 
of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  of  the  "  urge  to  be 
well."  In  some  persons,  the  feeling  is  absent  until  posi- 
tive pain  sets  in.  Mostly  the  persons  who  are  markedly 
deficient  in  somesthesia  are  of  the  ideomotor  and  sinewy 
motor  temperaments, —  the  persons  who  are  driven  by  ex- 
ternal ideas  or  by  internal  desires  of  a  mainly  psychical 
character.  Some  of  those  who  are  deficient  in  somesthe- 
sia, however,  are  of  the  reflective  sedentary  type  and  mas- 
tered by  internal  ideas, —  central  images  or  reasonings. 
By  some,  it  is  contended  that  the  absence  of  somesthesia 
is  the  direct  cause  of  the  invalidism  that  seems  to  char- 
acterize so  many  persons  of  these  temperaments,  and  that 
the  activity  of  their  somesthesia  is  what  makes  the  mus- 
cular motor  and  the  vital  corpulent  enviable  pictures  of 
health. 

It  has  even  been  gravely  proposed  that  in  every  bed- 
room of  the  land  beneath  the  embroidered  motto, — "  He 
giveth  His  beloved  sleep," —  should  be  posted  a  big  card 
with  these  words  in  red  ink, — "  How  is  your  somesthesia 
today?" 

It  is,  however,  possible  to  have  an  undue  interest  in 
one's  bodily  feelings  and  because  of  such  interest  to  be 
made  ill  from  worry  regarding  one's  health.  Just  as 
there  are  many  who  pay  no  regard  whatever  to  their  states 
of  health  and  to  their  present  tendencies  up  or  down  in 

26 


THE  INSTINCT  TO  BE  WELL  27 

the  health  scale,  there  are  a  few  who  make  themselves 
sick  with  too  much  inquiry  and  thinking  about  their 
health.     We  should  pursue  here  the  safe  middle  course. 

One  person  never  thinks  of  his  health  until  he  has  a 
headache  or  a  pain  in  his  foot  or  some  other  disturbance. 
Another  person  never  forgets  his  feelings  at  all  and  is 
always  recounting  to  others  how  well  he  feels  or  just 
what  little  aches  and  pains  he  has. 


HEALTH    AND   PAIN 

When  one  pauses,  gets  quiet  and  begins  to  think  of  the 
health  matter,  very  often  there  is  an  unnecessary  pres- 
sure of  feeling  perhaps  about  a  tooth  or  a  collar  or  a 
toe  or  a  little  pain,  real  enough  but  little,  at  some  point 
or  other  inside  or  outside  of  the  body ;  —  a  strained  ten- 
don, a  sore  muscle,  a  tired  out  eye,  may  be  its  location. 
When  health  and  energy  run  steady  and  strong,  we  en- 
dure, even  ignore  many  pains.  When  we  are  excited  or 
hard  driven,  we  suppress  all  pains  and  aches  unless  they 
become  so  extraordinary  as  to  defeat  the  will  to  proceed 
in  action.  Kinesthesia  (delight  in  action)  is  the  direct 
destroyer  of  somesthesia  (delight  to  be  alive).  Most 
teachers  are  too  kinesthesiac. 

Many  and  many  a  time,  teachers  get  up  from  bed  with 
headaches  or  other  pains,  which  grow  worse  rather  than 
better  until  they  get  to  school;  then  and  there,  they  are 
forgotten  ;  and  the  sufferers  feel  that  they  have  triumphed 
over  their  weak  bodies.  Sometimes,  the  pains  or  aches 
become  worse  after  school ;  but  sometimes  they  have  been 
effectively  killed  off.  The  explanation  lies  in  the  effect 
of  adrenalin  from  the  suprarenal  glands  upon  the  blood, 
the  heart,  the  general  tissues  and  especially  upon  the  brain 
and  other  nerves.  The  former  sufferer  feels  triumphant ; 
—  his  mind  and  will  (some  persons  think  that  they  can 


28    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

discern  one  from  the  other!)  have  conquered  his  body. 

In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  when  this  kines- 
thesia defeats  the  somesthesia,  the  body  consciousness, 
in  this  fashion,  the  man  pays  back  double  and  more  that 
very  evening  and  night.  The  safe  rule  after  defeating, 
perhaps  necessarily  (?),  one's  physical  conscience  for 
several  hours  is  at  the  first  opportunity  to  take  a  bath, 
drink  a  lot  of  water,  eat  an  orange,  and  go  to  bed,  even 
in  daytime. 

Conquering  pain  by  getting  up  an  excitement  is  all  of 
a  piece  with  the  miserable  habit  that  so  many  semi- 
invalids  have  of  ignoring  the  calls  of  nature  to  empty  the 
bladder  or  the  bowels,  from  which  several  positive  dis- 
eases and  various  ruptures  may  and  often  do  result. 

All  forms  of  autointoxication,  all  manner  of  self-orig- 
inated diseases  are  due  to  quieting  the  voice  of  one's 
body-life. 

The  troubles  due  to  over-interest  in  one's  somesthesia 
are  of  a  different  order, —  laziness,  epicurism,  fussiness, 
indifference  to  duty,  blindness  to  ideals,  "  gross  "  mate- 
rialism, sometimes  particular  vices,  excessive  selfishness. 
One  may  give  too  serious  consideration  to  one's  somes- 
thesia or  instinct  to  get  well  and  to  stay  so ;  for  example, 
fear  to  go  outdoors  in  a  rain-storm  because  one  is  "  nerv- 
ously too  tired  "  and  may  take  cold,  may  keep  one  from 
sufficiently  aerating  one's  blood  to  permit  good  metabo- 
lism and  sound  night's  sleep. 


THE   BODY   THERMOSTAT 

Fortunately  this  instinct  can  be  rationalized,  for  there 
are  ways  and  instruments  for  determining  whether  or 
not  one  is  really  ill  or  becoming  ill.  Among  these  is  the 
clinical  thermometer,  which  is  easy  to  operate  and  fairly 
reliable.     For  most  persons,  at  most  ages,  with  the  correc- 


THE  INSTINCT  TO  BE  WELL  29 

tions  indicated  below,  this  table  for  observing  the  body 
temperature  serves  quite  well,  viz. — 

96  °      Get  to  bed  and  send  for  a  physician. 
Take  some  stimulant  immediately. 
Get  to  bed  and  send  for  a  physician. 
980      Take  some  warm  food  and  drink,  or  go  for  a 
brisk  walk. 
5 c   Probably  you  are  well. 
990      Live  quietly ;  drink  fresh  water. 
ioo°      Get  to  bed  and  send  for  a  physician. 
101 c      Get  to  bed  and  send  for  a  physician.     Drink  cold 
water. 
Put  a  cold  compress  on  forehead  or  neck. 

The  body  is  a  chemical  laboratory  whose  output  is 
life-and-death,  force-and-pain,  strength-and-weakness. 
It  has  come  to  pass  that  98.5 °  registers  the  correct  point 
for  these  chemical  processes.  Whether  this  particular 
point,  98.5 °  has  been  fixed  by  some  such  fact  as  that  the 
animal  which  was  to  develop  into  man  emerged  from  the 
primeval  sea  to  live  upon  the  land  when  the  waters  of 
that  sea  averaged  98.5 °  (as  the  waters  of  the  oceans 
now  average  520)  is  but  a  brilliant  conjecture  of  spec- 
ulative science.  But  whether  true  or  false,  it  so  happens 
that  most  men  are  well  at  a  body  temperature  taken  under 
the  tongue  showing  from  98.50  to  98.80  Fahrenheit. 

This  particular  temperature  is  not  absolutely  accurate 
nor  universally  so.  Indeed  the  temperature  may  be  taken 
at  various  other  points  of  the  body,  as  under  the  arm- 
where  it  runs  98,  when  the  tongue  temperature  is 
The  average  shown  for  healthy  persons  number- 
ing tens  of  thousands  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages  shows  in 
truth  a  slightly  higher  temperature, —  98.7.  But  there 
ral   explanations    for   this   slight    variation   from 


30    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

the  popularly  known  figure.  One  is  that  children's  tem- 
peratures, which  are  included,  run  slightly  higher  than 
those  of  adults.  99  °  does  not  indicate  a  fever  in  a  small 
boy  who  runs  all  day.  In  all  races,  as  indeed  of  all  warm- 
blooded creatures,  the  temperatures  of  the  young  are 
higher  than  those  of  the  old.  Another  explanation  is  that 
the  scientific  average  was  taken  by  physicians ;  and  their 
temperature  records  always  run  a  little  high  because  per- 
sons whom  they  are  examining  are  generally  somewhat 
excited  and  are  breathing  hard,  which  raises  the  body 
heat. 

The  temperatures  of  women  as  well  as  those  of  children 
run  a  little  higher  than  those  of  men  of  the  same  ages 
and  races. 

The  temperatures  of  persons  of  some  races  run  higher 
than  those  of  other  races.  The  key  to  this  is  not  meat- 
eating,  as  some  incorrectly  suppose,  nor  is  it  wholly  in 
the  extent  of  outdoor  life  or  of  physical  exercise.  It  is 
not  even  in  the  metabolism,  for  those  who  get  plenty 
of  nourishment  from  their  food  do  not  run  high  tempera- 
tures. The  key  is  not  in  the  quality  of  the  skin,  especially 
as  to  the  activity  of  the  perspiration  glands.  It  is  not  a 
matter  of  the  body  coefficient ;  slender  persons  do  not  have 
low  coefficients  and  fat  persons  high  coefficients.  Nor 
is  it  in  the  balance  of  all  these  factors  together.  The 
temperature  is  not  a  direct  function  of  the  heart  action, 
though  there  is  a  tendency  to  run  a  high  temperature  when 
the  pulse  quickens.  Consequently,  a  high  temperature 
and  a  low  pulse  constitute  a  positive  dual  symptom  that 
may  help  a  competent  physician  to  diagnose  such  a  case. 

The  Chinese  run  low  temperatures  as  do  also  the  Hin- 
doos. The  Italians  run  high  temperatures;  the  Scotch 
likewise. 

The  key  to  the  normal  and  slight  variations  of  tem- 
perature as  between  races  is  the  development  of  the  liver. 


THE  INSTINCT  TO  BE  WELL  31 

The  other  elements  noted  above  count  perhaps  a  little, 
but  only  a  little.  When  the  liver  is  properly  developed 
in  its  three  functions  and  operating  well,  the  body  heat 
is  kept  at  about  98.50 — a  little  lower  in  the  morning 
and  a  little  higher  in  the  afternoon,  especially  shortly 
after  the  noon  meal  when  there  has  been  a  considerable 
intake  of  sugar.  In  a  well  man,  the  variation  may  run 
daily  from  98.20  at  4  a.  m.  to  98.90  at  2  r.  m.  ;  and  in  a 
woman  from  98. 3 °  to  99 °  ;  each  aged  thirty  to  forty 
years  old  and  being  of  English  stock;  outdoor  tempera- 
ture (say)  500  to  8o°,  though  this  makes  but  little  dif- 
ference except  at  the  extremes  of  weather, —  below  zero 
and  above  blood  heat. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  death  is  certain  when  the  tem- 
perature falls  below  960  or  climbs  above  1080..  Modern 
medicine  knows  better.  There  was  a  case  of  a  typhoid 
patient  who  every  day  for  four  weeks  ran  a  temperature 
above  1050  and  every  day  for  ten  days  ran  a  temperature 
from  1070  to  108.5 °  Dut  wno  Sot  weU  and  lived  long 
afterwards. 

In  order  to  "  freeze  to  death,"  it  is  not  necessary  for 
the  body  to  get  below  32 °,  the  freezing  point  upon  the 
Fahrenheit  scale ;  the  human  body  cannot  perform  its  nor- 
mal processes  when  it  drops  in  health  from  the  external 
cold  to  670,  which  is  its  "  freezing-point  " ;  and  it  does  not 
get  well  when  its  temperature  runs  for  several  days  below 
940 ;  indeed,  below  960  for  any  considerable  period  of 
time  is  usually  fatal. 

Human  life  is  a  flame  as  of  gases  that  burn  into 
*  mind  "  at  a  temperature  within  one  or  two  degrees  of 
98.5 °  ;  varying  much  from  which,  the  flame  dies  out. 
The  flame  of  life  is  a  marvel. 

Life  is  indeed  a  marvel  in  many  aspects.  Perhaps  none 
of  these  aspects  is  more  astonishing  at  first  thought  than 
that  980  to  990  happens  to  be  the  temperature  in  health 


$2         THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

of  nearly  all  animals !  and  of  most  birds !  At  980,  warm- 
blooded living  things  all  united  confront  the  earth. 

Anyone  does  well  to  keep  a  clinical  thermometer  on 
hand  and  to  use  it  whenever  worried  about  one's  health. 
It  is  certainly  comforting  to  know  that  a  headache  with 
the  temperature  of  98.5 °  means  that  in  all  probability  one 
is  not  "  coming  down  "  with  the  influenza  or  with  any 
other  disease.  Such  a  headache  has  a  local  cause,  eye- 
strain perhaps,  or  ear-strain,  or  a  spinal  fatigue. 

Another  good  instrument  for  helping  one  to  intellec- 
tualize  and  to  rationalize  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
is  the  blood  pressure  machine,  which,  however,  happens 
to  be  expensive  (costing  $20  to  $30,  according  to  make) 
and  to  be  somewhat  technical  in  operation.  Many  public 
schools,  however,  are  now  equipped  with  this  instrument ; 
and  any  teacher  can  learn  to  operate  it.  Preferably, 
however,  the  blood  pressure  should  be  taken  by  a  physi- 
cian or  a  nurse  or  by  some  physiopsychologist  familiar 
with  the  meaning  of  the  figures  recorded. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  healthy  young  woman  of  Scotch 
ancestry  in  America  who  worried  herself  into  distress 
painful  to  observe  upon  her  face  because  someone  had 
taken  her  blood  pressure  and  found  it  to  be  "  only  100." 
Her  pulse,  however,  was  76,  when  standing,  and  her 
body  coefficient  2.05 ;  the  whole  state  of  her  health  was, 
therefore,  apparently  satisfactory.  A  little  knowledge 
imparted  to  others  may  make  them  unnecessarily  un- 
happy. Health  is  wholeness,  and  a  single  item  of  this 
statistical  kind  may  be  negligible. 


CHAPTER  III 

DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  OF  HEALTH 
CONDITIONS 

THAT  all  diagnosis  is  differential  everyone  has  heard 
and  many  appreciate.  That  we  are  now  able  to 
diagnose  the  several  fevers  that  a  century  ago  were  all 
supposed  to  be  one  and  the  same  is  a  triumph  of  modern 
medicine.  Now  we  can  tell  apart  typhoid  and  typhus; 
smallpox  and  varioloid;  we  have  identified  membranous 
croup  as  diphtheria  of  the  pharynx  and  upper  throat ;  we 
no  longer  confound  paranoia  with  melancholia,  the  very 
idea  seeming  absurd.  Much  of  the  old  darkness  respect- 
ing diseases  has  passed  away ;  the  fog  of  ignorance  has 
both  lifted  and  thinned. 

But  now  when  we  speak  of  differential  diagnosis,  we 
mean  something  far  deeper  than  this  discrimination  be- 
tween diseases  and  ailments.  We  mean  discrimination 
between  man  and  woman,  between  man  and  child;  be- 
tween man  and  man ;  woman  and  woman ;  child  and  child. 
We  know  now  that  no  two  typhoid  cases  are  just  alike ; 
that  no  two  persons  have  just  the  same  stomach  troubles ; 
that  every  human  being  is  a  new  congeries  of  forces,  a 
new  scries  of  problems.  We  know  even  that  the  man  of 
lixty  years  may  present  vitally  different  physiological 
problems  from  those  of  the  man  of  twenty-five,  and  yet 
be  substantially  well.  He  may  have  quite  a  different 
temperament  and  considerably  different  tissues;  as,  of 
course,  he  may  have  and  doubtless  should  have  a  very 
different  view  of  1 

"  Know  thyself !  "  said  Socrates,  quoting  several  almost 
33 


34    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

as  wise  men  as  himself  who  came  before  him.  But  no 
one  can  know  himself  unless  to  a  degree  he  knows  others 
also.  Vice  versa  also  contains  truth;  no  one  can  know 
others  until  to  a  considerable  extent  he  knows  himself. 

In  this  knowledge  of  oneself  and  of  others,  what  facts 
are  most  worth  knowing,  especially  facts  in  respect  to 
knowledge  of  the  conduct  of  the  physical  life?  The  an- 
swer in  full  would  be  an  encyclopedia  of  many  sciences 
from  anthropology  to  philology.  But  some  points  may 
well  be  dwelt  upon. 

The  political  world  would  perhaps  like  to  have  us  forget 
our  races,  stocks  and  breeds  and  to  allow  ourselves  only 
the  classifications  of  I.Americans,  2.  Allies,  3.  Neutrals, 
and  4.  "  Huns."  It  may  even  look  upon  ethnology  and 
race-anthropology  as  decisive  on  the  hypothesis  that  what 
the  world  needs  is  unity  rather  than  concord,  integration 
rather  than  harmony, —  a  proposition  distinctly  debatable. 
But  human  somatology  has  so  much  to  reveal  of  impor- 
tance to  personal  hygiene  (as  indeed  to  many  other  inter- 
ests) that  a  few  of  its  truths  are  insistent  for  utterance. 
The  calipers  and  the  tape  measures,  the  weight  scales, 
the  blood  pressure  instruments  and  the  sphygmograph 
prove  by  the  millions  of  cases  that  heredity  according  to 
race,  stock  and  breed  runs  true  to  form  through  thou- 
sands of  years. 

RACE   NATURES 

There  are  fourteen  easily  distinguishable  breeds  of 
humanity  with  notably  different  traits  upon  the  British 
Isles,  nine  in  France,  eight  in  Germany,  three  in  Sweden, 
■five  in  Italy,  twenty-two  in  Russia;  and  we  Americans 
derive  from  one  or  another  of  these  unmistakably.  Some 
of  these  breeds  have  dominant  traits  against  all  others 
and  prove  this  in  the  cases  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
persons  of  greatly  mixed  ancestry  in  America.     Politi- 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  35 

cally  this  may  be  interesting  but  inconsequential ;  hygien- 
ically,  it  is  of  very  great  importance. 

To  describe  many  cases  would  exceed  the  permissible 
limits  here ;  but  a  few  are  necessary. 

In  power  to  mark  descendants,  no  race  is  stronger  than 
the  dark  Pict,  whose  habitat  for  a  thousand  years  or  more 
was  the  east  coast  and  southern  border  of  Scotland.  He 
is  never  vital  corpulent  or  anemic  sedentary ;  but  gener- 
ally muscular  or  sinewy  motor,  and  occasionally  ideo- 
motor.  He  needs  outdoor  life.  He  has  diseases  accord- 
ing to  his  indoor  confinement,  to  the  climate  of  his  Amer- 
ican habitat,  and  to  the  fitness  of  his  occupation  to  his 
physique.  Though  but  one  of  the  eight  grandparents  has 
been  dark  Pict,  the  child  will  almost  always  show  the 
traits  of  this  dominant  breed. 

Next  in  power  to  mark  descendants  is  the  Norman 
French  strain  to  be  found  conspicuously  in  Normandy 
itself  and  well  distributed  in  England.  Many  Americans 
show  this  strain.  A  man  of  the  Norman  French  breed 
has  many  characteristics  like  the  dark  Pict ;  but  the  distin- 
guishing traits  are  positive.  The  hands  are  very  unlike ; 
those  of  the  Norman  French  are  always  long,  slender, 
tapering,  and  every  finger  likewise.  They  are  the  hands 
of  artists  and  skillful  artisans, —  no  other  breed  has  any 
such  hands;  But  the  Norman  French  prospers  indoors 
when  he  does  muscular  work  in  fresh  air.  He  has  dis- 
eases accordingly.  Yet  many  dark  Picts  (in  popular 
terms  the  M  brunette  Scotch  ")  teach  school  while  the 
Norman  French  are  too  impatient  and  too  desirous  of 
perfection  to  be  happy  as  school  teachers.  The  dark 
Tict  seldom  has  nervous  prostration;  the  Norman  French 
often  displays  it. 

The  Angle  is  much  like  the  Norman  French  and  sel- 
dom teaches  school,  being  too  impulsive  and  too  resistant 
to  reasoning. 


36    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

But  the  Saxon,  blond,  stout,  good-natured,  loves  to 
teach  school.  He  is  usually  either  vital  corpulent  or  mus- 
cular motor. 

His  traits,  however,  are  distinctly  recessive.  Exoga- 
mously  married,  he  fails  to  mark  his  descendants  strongly 
with  his  own  traits.  The  calipers  and  the  tape  measure 
and  the  scales  cannot  tell  the  difference  between  the  pure 
Saxon  in  Germany,  in  England  or  in  America,  of  whom 
there  are  many  millions,  for  the  Saxons  are  domestic; 
Saxon  men  and  women  are  natural  affinities  for  persons 
of  other  stocks ;  and  they  have  large  families.  Dark  Pict, 
Norman  French  and  Angle  all  delight  in  consorts  of  other 
breeds ;  and  especially  from  the  Saxons,  for  the  sufficient 
reason  that  the  Saxon  is  complacent  and  healthy  and 
cheerful,  a  good  husband  and  a  better  wife.  Hence 
arose  the  Anglo-Saxon,  who  even  in  England  is  not  nu- 
merous but  who  has  served  to  symbolize  not  a  race  but 
a  nation  and  the  several  peoples  and  countries  dominated 
by  this  nation,  in  the  etymological  signification  of  that 
term,  "  common  birth." 

The  somatologist  finds  in  America  evidence  that  not 
less  than  forty  different  European  races,  stocks  and 
breeds  are  represented  in  our  population.  In  teaching, 
one  finds  conspicuously,  east  and  west,  these,  viz, — 

i.  Saxons. 

2.  Scotch-Irish  (that  is,  "dark  Pict-Saxons  "). 

3.  Pure  blond  Kelts  (from  Ireland). 

4.  Pure  dark  Kelts  (from  Ireland  and  Wales). 

5.  Anglo-Saxons. 

6.  Dark  Picts. 

7.  Russian  Jews. 

8.  Danes,  Frisians,  Jutes  from  England   (somatolog- 

ically  the  same). 

9.  The  Black  British  (from  middle  England). 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  37 

Few  teachers,  very  few,  come  from  any  other  stocks 
with  these  exceptions,  viz. — 

1.  Drawing  and  the  arts  attract  into  the  profession  a 
few  Norman  French. 

2.  Music  draws  in  a  few  blond  (Highland)  Scotch. 

3.  The  Alpine  Swiss  take  to  rural  district  school  teach- 
ing here. 

4.  The  Parisian  French  (a  distinct  breed)  are  drawn 
into  certain  specialties,  such  as  trade,  play-acting,  music. 

The  external  physical  characteristics  and  the  unmis- 
takable psychical  characteristics  of  all  the  races,  stocks 
and  breeds  from  which  Americans  derive  can  all  be  dis- 
cerned by  observers  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  notice 
them  systematically.  These  characteristics  include  health 
traits,  tendencies  to  certain  diseases,  longevity,  which 
differs  greatly  in  the  different  stocks,  and  all  such  matters. 

There  are  not  less  than  two  million  persons  of  Italian 
blood  in  the  American  population ;  and  there  are  five  dis- 
tinct ethnological  varieties  of  Italians.  At  present,  how- 
ever, but  few  Italians  ever  teach  school.  Such  as  do 
teach  become  music  and  art  specialists  and  kindergart- 
ners  with  here  and  there  a  professor  in  a  college  in  some 
such  lines  as  his  own  language  and  literature,  art  or  archi- 
tecture. For  this,  there  are  several  causes.  One  is  that 
an  Italian  who  can  sing  prefers  rather  to  sing  than  to 
teach  singing.  Another  is  that  our  Americans  of  Italian 
ancestry  do  not  yet  finish  high  school  and  then  go  to 
college;  it  has  never  been  characteristic  of  Italians  to 
undergo  long,  regular,  socialized  training. 

But  for  the  practical  purposes  of  teacher  hygiene,  one 
does  not  need  to  inquire  in  all  these  lines  and  to  observe 
their  individual  characteristics.  Some  races,  stocks  and 
breeds  furnish  no  teachers  or  so  few  as  to  be  negligible, 
such  as  the  Magyars,  the  north  coast  Scotch,  our  own  In- 


38    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER  • 

dians,  some  peasant  stocks  of  France  and  the  British 
Isles,  most  Russian  stocks,  and  Turks. 


THE    CEPHALIC    INDEX 

It  is,  however,  profitable  to  observe  the  physical  and 
psychical  signs  of  the  stocks,  races  and  breeds  whose  rep- 
resentatives do  teach  in  considerable  numbers ;  and  it  is 
especially  profitable  to  observe  these  signs  in  oneself. 
Of  all  those  mentioned  above,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Alpine  Swiss,  the  cephalic  indexes  indicate  mesocephaly 
or  dolichocephaly.  The  Alpine  Swiss  are  highly  brachy- 
cephalic.  The  cephalic  index  is  found  by  dividing  the 
distance  between  the  ears  taken  one  inch  above  the  meatus 
(ear-opening)  by  distance  of  the  longest  axis,  front  -to 
rear,  wherever  found  (forehead  to  back  head).  The 
commonly  accepted  figures  are  these,  viz. — 

(Men)  Dark  Pict  8o° ;  Angle  780 ;  Saxon  8o° ;  Dane 
JJ° ;  Dark  Kelt  8o° ;  Russian  Jew  JJ° ;  Norman  French 
yy°.  Women  of  all  races  measure  2  points  higher  in 
their  cephalic  indexes  than  the  men ;  that  is,  Dark  Pict 
82 °  ;  etc.  Their  heads  are  a  little  shorter  and  a  little 
wider  than  those  of  men  of  the  same  blood. 

There  are  eight  other  measures  of  some  significance; 
viz. —  1.  over  forehead ;  2.  over  middle  head ;  3.  over  back 
head ;  4.  under  back  head ;  5.  head  circumference ;  6.  neck 
circumference;  7.  distance  between  eyes  from  pupil  to 
pupil. 

In  measuring  14,000  persons,  the  extremes  were  a  col- 
lege student  male  of  twenty  years,  cephalic  index  63, 
length  of  head  8^4  inches ;  woman  college  graduate  index 
66,  head  length  Sy2  inches,  over  middle  head  n>4  inches ; 
boy  of  fourteen,  cephalic  index  118;  college  student,  fe- 
male, nineteen  years  old,  index  88.  A  typical  well- 
developed  male  Anglo-Saxon  has  these  measurements, 
viz. — 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  39 

1.  cephalic  index   780 

2.  head  width $7A  inches. 

3.  head  length 7l/2  inches. 

4.  over  forehead 14      inches. 

5.  over  middlehead 14^2  inches. 

6.  over  backhead 14      inches. 

7.  under  backhead 8}4  inches. 

8.  neck  circumference  .  ., 14      inches. 

9.  head  circumference   22)4  inches. 

To  pursue  this  subject  into  details  extended  to  cover 
all  the  races  that  contribute  many  individuals  to  teaching 
would  defeat  the  purpose  in  presenting  this  topic  here, 
which  is  rather  to  illustrate  the  point  that  individuals  in 
their  health  conditions  differ  according  to  race,  than  to 
enlarge  upon  ethnology. 

It  is  a  psychical  sign  of  the  dark  Pict  to  be  prudent  and 
yet  deeply  emotional.  To  persons  of  other  stocks,  these 
qualities  are  irreconcilable,  and  yet  every  true  Pict  has 
them. 

The  Angle  is  impulsive  and  headstrong.  The  race  dis- 
plays an  excessive  tendency  to  breed  mental  defectives 
especially  of  the  feeble-minded  grade. 

The  Saxon  is  sentimental,  domestic,  complacent. 

The  Jute  and  the  Dane  love  freedom  and  equality  and 
delight  in  fighting  for  their  individual  rights.  They  have 
no  desire  to  rule  others,  and  they  prefer  death  to  sub- 
mission to  others. 

The  Irish  dark  Kelt  is  the  personification  of  personal 
loyalty.     He  is  emotional  and  imprudent. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  typical  mental  signs  of  the  races 
that  develop  teachers. 

Their  illnesses  as  teachers  because  of  their  resistances 
to  their  environment  follow.  One  race  resists  one  way, 
another  otherwise. 


4o    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

The  common  teacher-ailments  are  these,  viz. — 
i.  Nervous  troubles,  including  headaches. 

2.  Alimentary  canal  derangements. 

3.  Eye-strains. 

4.  Malnutrition. 

5.  Broken-down  teeth. 

The  Angle  as  a  teacher  suffers  from  them  all;  the 
Saxon  suffers  but  little  from  any  of  them;  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  escapes  usually  the  alimentary  canal  derangements 
and  malnutrition.  Though  resistant,  the  dark  Pict  occa- 
sionally suffers  from  all  of  them,  least  often  from  alimen- 
tary canal  derangements.  The  Norman  French  is  espe- 
cially victimized  by  nervous  troubles.  The  Irish  Kelt 
suffers  from  broken-down  teeth.  The  Jute  and  Dane  get 
off  lightly. 

With  so  many  composite  physiques  to  consider,  it  is 
helpful  to  remember  that  the  dominant  strain  decade  by 
decade  overcomes  the  recessive  in  the  individual.  The 
Anglo-Saxon,  as  he  grows  old,  loses  the  Saxon  psychical 
and  other  traits,  and  becomes  more  and  more  Anglish 
(pure  English).     His  blond  hair  turns  dark. 

THE  VARIOUS   TEMPERAMENTS 

Next  in  dealing  with  hygiene,  it  is  profitable  to  note  the 
various  temperaments,  which  cannot  be  understood  with- 
out knowledge  of  races.  Among  men,  there  are  five  obvi- 
ously different  temperaments,  viz. — 

Ideo-motor. 

Sinewy-motor. 

Muscular-motor. 

Vital  corpulent. 

Anemic  sedentary. 
Among  women,  the  maternal  instinct  greatly  modifies 
all  these  temperaments.     Nine  women  in  ten  have  this 
instinct  actively  at  work.     It  is,  however,  strong  only  in 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  41 

the  muscular-motor  and  the  vital  corpulent.  Among 
women,  few  survive  to  teach  at  fifty  years  of  age  unless 
they  started  to  teach  with  the  sinewy-motor,  the  muscu- 
lar motor,  or  the  vital  corpulent  temperament.  The  ideo- 
motor  break  down  early ;  the  vital  corpulent  dislike  the 
work ;  and  the  anemic  sedentary  fail  for  want  of  physical 
strength  to  perform  it. 

Consequently,  as  soon  as  one  knows  that  a  woman 
teacher  is  *  no  longer  young,"  it  is  safe  to  guess  that  she 
has  either  the  sinewy  motor  or  the  muscular  motor  tem- 
perament. The  maternal  instinct  makes  the  "  womanly 
woman "  and  keeps  her  comparatively  young.  The 
M  girlish  woman  "  and  the  "  premature  old  maid,"  greatly 
different  though  they  are,  nevertheless  are  alike  in  lacking 
an  active  maternal  instinct.  No  greater  mistake,  how- 
ever, can  be  made  than  to  imagine  that  an  unmarried 
woman  teacher  necessarily  has  lacked  the  maternal  in- 
stinct. 

The  presence  of  an  active  maternal  instinct  greatly 
modifies  the  health.  Motherly  women  who  have  never 
borne  children  do  more  hard  work  with  less  fatigue  than 
"  girlish  women  "  and  "  old  maids."  Their  illnesses  dif- 
fer accordingly.  Motherly  women  do  not  often  suffer 
from  "  woman's  troubles."  The  woman  teacher  who  is 
actually  a  mother, —  wife  or  widow, —  may  have  any  of 
woman's  troubles.  Virgins,  of  course,  have  their  charac- 
teristic troubles,  which  are  often  very  serious  in  such  as 
arc  non-maternal. 

THE   IDEO- MOTOR 

With  this  highly   important  element  of  the  maternal 
instinct  properly  allowed  for,  one  may  safely  generalize 
to  the  extent  of  anticipating  relatively  large  numbers  of 
persons  of  the  ideo-motor  among  such  as  fall  victims  te*. 
to  the  nervous  troubles.  _  By  definition,  the  ideo-motor  are 


42    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

responsive  to  external  stimuli  without  reflection,  which 
permits  self -protection.  These  persons  make  fine  kinder- 
gartners,  being  notably  alert  to  the  needs  and  ways  of 
children;  in  all  higher  grades,  the  very  nature  of  their 
work  endangers  their  nervous  stability.  Being  careless 
of  their  own  welfare,  their  teeth  are  allowed  to  fall  away 
in  condition;  they  eat  and  drink  what  they  should  not, 
being  misled  by  the  suggestions  and  actions  of  others. 
Being  overstimulated,  and  really  unable  to  endure  the 
anxious  conditions  of  upper  grade  and  high  school  work, 
their  whole  physique  suffers  in  ways  shown  by  malnutri- 
tion, by  stomach  and  bowel  disorders,  and  otherwise. 

It  is  an  hypothesis  worth  considering  that  the  ideo- 
motor  temperament  is  the  direct  result  of  over-active 
suprarenal  glands  and  of  excessive  loads  of  adrenalin  in 
the  blood  and  tissues.  The  ideo-motor,  of  course,  never 
have  strong  muscles,  though  some  few  of  -them  are  able 
to  retain  and  to  develop  active  ones.  The  highly  explo- 
sive character  of  the  muscular  tissue  of  the  ideo-motor 
may  be  due  in  part  to  adrenalin  and  in  part  to  the  small 
bulk  of  muscle  and  the  consequently  relatively  large 
amount  of  nervous  matter  in  them. 

Some  diagnosticians  think  that  the  over-activity  of  the 
adrenalin  glands  exhausts  the  pituitary  glands  and  pre- 
vents the  making  of  fat. 

Since  ideo-motivity  as  a  constitutional  trait  is  so  dan- 
gerous to  health,  persons  of  this  temperament  often  ask 
whether  temperament  is  unescapable  fate.  Are  the  ideo- 
motor  congenitally  doomed  to  their  troubles? 

In  the  first  place,  ideo-motivity,  under  a  measure  of 
rational  objectives  as  life-aims,  is  not  by  any  means  un- 
desirable. Such  persons  make  the  finest  of  aviators  and 
are  extraordinarily  successful  as  actors  and  as  actresses. 
Brought  under  rational  control,  ideo-motivity  changes  to 
a  mental  condition  that  usually  develops  the  sinewy  motor 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  43 

temperament.  Of  course,  however,  the  ideo-motor  adult 
never  changes  so  far  as  to  become  vital  corpulent  or  mus- 
cular motor. 

No  physician  ever  anticipates  the  development  of  these 
impatient,  often  overworking  and  undereating  and  char- 
acteristically undersleeping  persons  into  quiet  caretakers 
of  their  own  health  or  that  of  any  one  else.  As  mothers, 
they  are  not  quiet  watchers  of  their  babies  and  children. 
They  cannot  develop  the  rational  control  that  is  almost 
essential  to  hygienic  living  under  present-day,  civilized 
conditions. 

The  ideo-motor  often  develop  that  entire  diathesis  dis- 
cussed later  in  Chapter  V,  Case  2,  where  the  alimentary 
canal  is  frail  throughout. 

THE   SINEWY-MOTOR 

The  sinewy  motor  are  found  in  all  grades  and  kinds  of 
schools.  Theirs  is  the  work-all-day  temperament;  they 
work  with  comparative  ease  but  not  rapidly  except  after 
long  training.  They  place  thoroughness  before  rapidity, 
and  are  generally  prudent.  They  are  not,  however,  nota- 
bly well-nourished,  nor  are  they  full  of  the  joy  of  living. 
They  are  characteristically  serious  and  sometimes  dour ; 
most  of  the  Scotch  have  this  temperament. 

The  most  common  of  all  their  ailments  is  rheumatism, 
both  muscular  and  sciatic,  though  seldom  inflammatory,  to 
use  the  terms  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The  sinewy- 
motor  persons  tend  to  the  uric  acid  diathesis.  Theirs  are 
the  diseases  of  liver,  kidneys  and  bladder.  What  dis- 
turbances they  may  have  of  the  alimentary  canal  are 
usually  temporary  rather  than  chronic  and  are  due  to 
specific  causes. 

They  are  not  characteristically  careful  of  their  health ; 
and  because  they  have  a  poor  development  of  somesthesia, 


44    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

they  get  tired  out  or  overeat  or  suffer  some  other  trouble 
from  want  of  sufficient  care  and  of  active  bodily  warn- 
ings. 

That  interesting  combination, —  the  Anglo-Saxon, — 
often  is  sinewy  motor.  He  easily  drifts  into  neurotic 
conditions,  not  unlike  those  of  the  ideo-motor  invalid. 
Teaching  in  easy  circumstances  such  as  a  college  profes- 
sorship, the  sinewy  motor  man  or  woman  in  a  few  in- 
stances develops  a  physique  with  many  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  muscular  motor.  But  in  general  in  these 
persons,  the  sense  of  duty  is  so  strong  that  they  remain, 
though  strong,  nevertheless  thin  and  anxious. 


THE    MUSCULAR-MOTOR 

The  muscular  motor  enjoy  teaching.  They  seem  to  get 
along  well  even  against  the  hardships  of  grammar  grade 
and  first  year  high  school  classes,  when  adults  are  trying 
to  defeat  the  barbarian  instincts  and  traditions  of  the  pre- 
pubertal and  earliest  pubertal  epochs  in  the  young  who  are 
no  longer  children  yet  are  not  quite  youth.  Even  normal 
children  from  nine  to  fifteen  years  of  age  are  much  like 
morons,  habit-minded,  self-willed  yet  without  rationality, 
pragmatic.  The  only  temperament  fully  able  to  combat 
these  is  the  muscular  motor. 

This  temperament  is  at  once  strong  and  joyous.  It 
represents  a  balance  of  all  the  powers.  When  persons  of 
this  temperament  are  ill,  their  troubles  are  usually  not 
self-derived  but  the  result  of  infections  and  contagions. 
Occasionally,  a  heart  gets  out  of  order  or  a  kidney  breaks 
down.  They  have  both  muscular  and  inflammatory  rheu- 
matism. They  have  bowel  troubles  from  overeating,  or 
from  eating  the  wrong  food.  But  the  muscular  motor 
have  a  distinctly  competent  somesthesia  and  seldom  get 
all  out  of  kilter  at  any  time  before  they  are  fifty  years 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  45 

old.     They  show  age,  however,  earlier  than  do  the  sinewy 
motor;  nor  are  they  equally  long  lived. 

Most  American  teachers  who  are  muscular  motor  de- 
rive in  large  part  from  Saxon,  Dane,  Jute,  or  Frisian 
ancestry.  Some  Irish  Kelts  are  of  this  temperament, 
which  is  almost  as  numerously  represented  among  Amer- 
icans as  the  sinewy  motor. 

THE   VITAL  CORPULENT 

Very  few  teachers  are  of  the  vital  corpulent  tempera- 
ment, large,  healthy,  vigorous  but  not  muscularly  strong. 
Notwithstanding  a  high  somesthesia,  they  easily  become  ill 
and  often  suffer  from  nervous  affections.  They  are  not 
long-lived.  The  only  positions  that  they  hold  for  years 
happily  are  administrative,  for  they  are  admirably  adapted 
to  a  variety  of  duties.  The  dreary  round  of  the  same 
duties  daily  for  years  on  years  is  not  for  them. 

THE   ANEMIC    SEDENTARY 

The  anemic  sedentary  are  not  found  in  teaching  except 
here  and  there  in  an  institution  of  the  higher  learning. 
They  can  endure  great  and  long  intellectual  effort  but 
have  no  power  to  control  others.  They  may  be  scientists 
and  scholars.  Often  they  live  long.  Of  course,  they  are 
incurable  semi-invalids  requiring  much  care  from  per- 
sonal physicians  and  giving  much  thought  themselves  to 
their  health,  such  as  it  is.  They  undereat,  undersleep,  are 
constipated,  are  full  of  dull  pains,  have  poor  teeth  and 
take  but  little  exercise,  methodically  and  dully  at  that. 
Hut  often  the  anemic  sedentary  have  remarkable  minds. 
Their  very  temperament  is  probably  the  result  of  inferior 
ductless  gland  development.  It  is  characteristic  of  them 
to  wake  up  to  work  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening. 
(  M'ten  they  do  not  get  to  bed  until  after  midnight. 


46    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Once  in  a  while  a  young  man  or  woman  of  this  temper- 
ament becomes  a  rural  or  village  teacher  after  college  or 
normal  school  graduation.  Under  twenty-five  years  of 
age,  it  is  possible  to  reform  this  temperament  consider- 
ably by  dietetics  and  by  bowel-regulation.  More  food 
and  often  more  exercise  do  harm  rather  than  good  to 
persons  of  this  temperament.  They  have  low  pulses, 
poor  respiration  and  usually  low  blood  pressure.  Their 
eyesight  and  hearing  are  usually  poor.  Nevertheless,  half 
the  philosophers,  poets,  historians,  essayists,  scientists, 
novelists,  and  jurists  of  the  world  come  of  this  tempera- 
ment, the  unhappy  people  pale  with  thought  who  write 
the  record  of  every  generation  for  posterity  and  judge 
mankind  as  the  final  arbiters  of  praise  and  blame.  For- 
tunately, from  the  other  temperaments  come  enough  other 
persons  to  perform  the  same  functions  and  thereby  to 
relieve  and  to  lighten  the  gloom  and  to  give  posterity  a 
fair  opportunity  to  get  the  rest  of  the  truth. 


THE    MATERNAL   TEMPERAMENT 

The  correction  of  all  these  temperaments  by  the  ma- 
ternal instinct  manifesting  itself  in  women  teachers 
brings  about  significant  hygienic  differences.  The  chief 
physical  characteristics  are  increased  activity  of  the  lym- 
phatic glands,  stronger  pulse,  more  appetite  for  food, 
better  sleep,  and  heightened  somesthesia.  The  psychical 
characteristics  are  sympathy  and  joy.  In  consequence, 
under  this  stream  of  benignant  influences,  the  ideo-motor 
and  the  sinewy  women  become  healthier.  Unfortunately 
for  teaching,  the  same  influences  lead  some  of  the  mus- 
cular motor  and  of  the  vital  corpulent  out  of  the  profes- 
sion of  teaching  to  become  wives  and  mothers  and  nurses 
and  to  render  different  social  service  from  training  the 
young  in  school. 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  47 

From  this  same  source,  we  have  the  courtship  problem 
of  the  young  woman  teacher,  which  is  often  so  serious  in 
school  management.  Though  romantic  love  and  the  ma- 
ternal instinct  are  by  no  means  the  same  thing,  they  have 
a  high  coefficient  of  correlation  in  manifestation.  Ac- 
cording to  general  temperament,  the  young  woman  in 
love  and  engaged  to  marry  a  man  who  frequents  her 
company  has  certain  physical  disturbances,  while  one 
whose  lover  is  absent  has  psychical  disturbances.  Often, 
in  either  case,  she  becomes  thin,  loses  appetite,  tends  to 
headaches  and  displays  marked  nervous  instability. 
Sometimes,  when  of  the  ideo-motor  temperament,  she 
breaks  down  in  health  entirely  and  requires  constant 
medical  care.  It  is  almost  useless  to  urge  hygienic 
courses  of  action,  for  the  instinct  overcomes  reason. 

The  excitement  known  as  courtship  tends  to  late  hours, 
sleeplessness,  anger,  fear,  tears,  laughter,  all  of  which 
register  themselves  upon  the  health.  Women  frequently 
lose  appetite  for  their  meals  and  apply  to  their  physicians 
for  tonics  to  overcome  the  consequent  depression  and 
weakness. 

The  truth  is  that  Nature  is  now  making  one  of  her 
examinations.  The  sinewy  motor  type,  who  characteris- 
tically display  less  maternal  and  romantic  qualities  than 
the  muscular  motor  often  must  choose  between  courtship 
and  proceeding  as  teachers.  The  ideo-motor  are  often 
very  romantic  but  seldom  also  maternal.  Courtship  often 
leads  them  at  once  to  drop  out  of  teaching  even  long  prior 
to  actual  marriage.  A  love-affair  draws  the  vital  cor- 
pulent woman  out  of  teaching  immediately.  As  for  the 
anemic  sedentary,  any  love-affair  comes  to  them  as  a  sur- 
prise; takes  them  unawares,  unprepared  and  unfit;  and 
produces  irregular,  idiosyncratic  results. 

Though  men  have  no  paternal  instinct  that  corresponds 
with  the  maternal  instinct  in  women,  in  some  instances, 


48    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

they  are  quite  as  seriously  affected  by  courtship  as  are 
women  of  the  same  type  of  temperament.  (What  some 
generous  observers  style  the  "  paternal  instinct  "  in  man  is 
a  composition  of  habits  taught  them  by  their  mothers  and 
of  the  pity  that  the  noble  strong  feel  for  the  beautiful 
weak.) 

INDIVIDUALS    AT  VARIOUS   AGES 

Another  set  of  facts  worth  observing  by  any  one  who 
desires  to  become  a  rational  hygienist  concerns  age. 
The  young  think  of  all  persons  older  than  themselves  as 
equally  old,  but  in  the  processes  of  life  one  discovers  that 
age  is  relative.  The  ninety-year  old  man  looks  upon  the 
fifty-year  old  man  as  youthful  and  inexperienced;  but 
when  there  is  any  centenarian  nearby,  the  younger  man 
looks  up  to  him  as  having  won  a  still  greater  triumph  and 
hopes  to  come  to  an  equal  achievement.  The  sixty-year 
old  man  considers  the  man  of  thirty  as  quite  inexperienced 
and  wonders  when  he  displays  good  judgment.  And  the 
man  of  thirty-five  sees  the  man  of  twenty  as  scarcely  upon 
the  threshold  of  the  palace  of  life.  With  women,  the  dis- 
tinctions are  even  sharper. 

Again,  as  one  goes  through  life,  one  finds  that  he  moves 
with  his  own  generation.  To  oneself,  one  is  always  grow- 
ing, always  young,  and,  until  strength  breaks,  always 
capable  of  improvement. 

A  physician  received  a  call  from  a  patient  of  ninety- 
two  years,  who  said  that  he  never  felt  better,  that  he  was 
studying  diligently  every  day,  but  that  he  was  much 
troubled  on  his  daily  walk  of  two  miles  from  inability  to 
keep  his  wind.  This  man  had  completed  the  manuscript 
of  an  original  book  on  popular  religion  for  the  age.  Six 
days  later,  this  patient  died  of  dropsy.  To  avoid  arterio- 
sclerosis, the  old  gentleman  had  made  errors  of  diet  that 
led  to  the  trouble ;  that  is,  at  ninety-two  years  of  age,  he 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  49 

was  still  ready  to  experiment  upon  himself  to  improve  his 
health. 

The  general  feeling  that  the  world  belongs  to  one's  own 
age-equals  leads  to  neglect  of  the  truth  that  physically  we 
are  on  the  down  grade  at  forty  years.  Here,  however, 
temperament,  race,  environment  and  sex  make  very  great 
differences.  The  blond  Swede  from  the  back  country  is 
physiologically  as  young  at  thirty  years  of  age  as  the 
swart  Italian  of  Naples  at  eighteen  years  of  age. 

Among  women  the  first  menstruation  and  the  last  de- 
limit the  period  of  fertility ;  usually,  the  number  of  years 
of  fertility  is  about  thirty-two.  The  climax  of  fecundity 
comes  in  the  second  quarter  of  this  period.  When  physi- 
cal puberty  begins  at  thirteen  years  of  age,  the  time  of 
largest  sex-vitality  is  from  twenty-one  years  of  age  to 
thirty  years.  This  happens  to  be  the  time  of  life  when 
most  women  who  teach  do  most  of  their  teaching.  More 
women  are  teachers  at  twenty-two  years  of  age  than  at 
any  other  age.  Relatively  few  women  teach  after  thirty 
years  of  age  and  relatively  few  before  twenty  years  of  age. 
It  must  always  be  remembered  that  the  average  woman 
teaches  only  three  years  in  all,  from  twenty-one  to  twenty- 
four  years  of  age.  City  teaching  staffs,  of  course,  in- 
clude relatively  many  women  above  fifty  years  of  age ; 
but  two-thirds  of  all  the  schools  of  America  contain  just 
one  room  and  more  than  half  the  teachers  of  America 
teach  in  one-room  schoolhouses.  Of  the  575,000  teachers 
in  America,  the  number  of  women  above  fifty  years  of 
age  is  a  very  small  fraction.  Teachers  of  thirty  years' 
Hence  or  more  are  rare;  they  are  not  one  in  twenty 
in  any  city  in  America.  For  the  whole  country,  they 
make  about  one  per  cent  of  all  teachers,  while  the  men 
and  women  under  twenty-four  years  of  age  make  just 
fifty  per  cent. 

The  years  make  very  great  changes  in  health-conditions. 


50    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

which  are  interesting  to  the  historical  hygienist ;  but  prac- 
tically one  who  deals  with  the  personal  hygiene  of  teachers 
should  remember  that  his  main  business  is  with  teachers 
who  are  within  a  few  years  of  twenty-two  in  age.  Even 
the  men  do  not  average  much  older  than  the  women. 

In  general,  the  increasing  years  after  full  body-growth 
is  completed  slow  down  the  pulse,  weaken  the  heart 
action,  raise  the  blood  pressure,  develop  connective  tissue 
in  kidneys  and  liver,  reduce  the  time  rate  throughout  the 
body,  increase  the  weight  of  the  bones  and  reduce  their 
breaking-strength,  dull  all  the  nerves,  especially  those  of 
the  periphery  as  in  the  teeth,  in  the  finger  tips,  and  in  the 
skin,  dull  also  taste,  smell  and  hearing,  develop  far  sight 
in  the  eyes  and  severely  tighten  the  accommodation  of 
the  iris  of  the  eye,  increase  the  body  coefficient  until  fifty 
years  of  age  and  then  as  automatically  reduce  it,  shorten 
the  length  of  the  spinal  column  and  render  the  spinal  cord 
more  liable  to  concussions,  lessen  the  reaction  to  cold, 
thicken  the  nails  and  slow  down  their  growth,  making 
them  also  more  brittle,  weaken  the  hair  follicles  and  leave 
the  scalp  a  prey  to  dandruff  and  to  baldness,  lessen  the 
perspiration,  reduce  the  respirations  both  in  number  and 
depth,  and  after  forty  years  of  age  diminish  hunger  and 
shorten  the  hours  of  sleep. 

For  all  these  degenerative  changes,  there  are  almost  no 
physically  advantageous  compensations.  Perhaps,  pain 
is  less  shocking  to  the  whole  system  of  the  aged  than  of 
the  younger,  which  may  be  a  slight  advantage.  There  are 
less  fears,  and  such  as  remain  are  less  intense,  though  the 
fears  that  do  survive  become  permanent,  which  may  be 
seriously  unfortunate. 

Indeed  for  the  compensations  of  advancing  years,  one 
must  look  to  the  psychical  and  social  life. 

In  men,  the  period  of  sex-activity  runs  from  puberty  at 
fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  age  to  the  end  of  sex-power, 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  51 

which  averages  at  fifty-six  years  of  age,  but  may  extend 
to  seventy  years  or  even  older.  In  a  general  way,  it  may 
be  said  that  natural  seminal  emissions  occur  most  fre- 
quently in  the  second  quarter  of  this  period  lasting  per- 
haps forty-two  years,  from  twenty-four  to  thirty-five 
years  of  age;  and  in  men  of  the  muscular  motor  and 
vital  corpulent  temperament  occur  several  times  a  month, 
less  frequently  in  men  of  other  temperament.  They  are 
evidence  of  nothing  whatever  other  than  normal  sex- 
vitality.  Toward  the  end  of  the  entire  period,  they  occur 
months  apart.  In  all  healthy  men,  they  are  more  fre- 
quent in  the  months  of  February,  March  and  April  than 
at  any  other  time,  and  least  frequent  in  or  near  August 
and  December. 

When  the  profession  of  teaching  becomes  well  estab- 
lished, many  men  and  women  teachers  will  be  husbands, 
wives  and  parents.  It  is  an  invincible  fact  that  married 
men  and  women  living  with  their  consorts  live  longer 
and  have  better  health  and  are,  therefore,  more  fit  to 
teach  than  maidens  and  bachelors,  not  that  all  schools 
should  have  married  teachers  only  but  that  no  schools  of 
several  teachers  should  be  parentless  and  that  mothers 
and  fathers  should  be  preferred  for  such  one-room 
schools  as  cannot  be  consolidated  into  union  schools.  In 
order  to  get  married  persons  into  the  schools  as  teachers, 
it  will  be  necessary  so  to  readjust  both  the  work  of  the 
young  unmarried  men  and  women  and  so  to  develop  in 
them  rational  personal  hygiene  that  they  will  not  as  now 
quit  teaching  at  the  first  opportunity,  for  one  cause  that 
young  men  and  young  women  try  teaching  only  to  aban- 
don it  after  a  few  years  is  that  there  is  not  at  present  a 
rational  readjustment  between  the  conditions  environing 
the  teacher  himself  or  herself  and  the  individual.  As 
soon  as  young  teachers  really  learn  how  to  keep  them- 
selves healthy  and  happy  in  their  work, —  which,  how- 


52    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

ever,  in  some  communities  that  will  not  on  their  part  try 
to  remedy  unfair  conditions  will  be  impossible  no  matter 
how  wise  they  may  become, —  then  the  numbers  of  men 
and  women  who  remain  in  teaching  after  marriage  will 
greatly  increase. 

Because  of  the  great  differences  between  young  and 
old,  those  who  are  old  when  dealing  with  the  young  and 
giving  advice  to  them  should  remember  what  youth  really 
is,  what  its  requirements  are,  and  what  its  peculiar  diffi- 
culties. Youth  is  sensitive,  has  a  far  more  active  meta- 
bolism, is  unhappy  unless  learning  new  things,  when  with- 
out recreation  and  amusement  becomes  melancholy,  be- 
lieves in  the  "  short  hour,  high  pressure  day,"  resents 
drudgery,  feeds  on  variety,  and  nurses  dreams. 


THE   TWO    SEXES 

Another  set  of  considerations  that  one  should  have  in 
mind  in  order  to  get  into  right  relations  for  a  correct  per- 
sonal hygiene  has  to  do  with  sex.  The  physical  differ- 
ences between  the  sexes  begin  with  the  hair  of  the  head 
and  do  not  end  until  one  reaches  the  very  toes  of  the 
feet  There  are  hundreds  of  anatomical  differences  be- 
tween males  and  females  of  the  same  stocks  and  breeds 
at  the  same  physiological  ages,  most  of  them,  however, 
of  no  hygienic  significance.  Among  such  as  are  of  hy- 
gienic significance  are  these,  viz. —  the  women  have 
thinner  skin,  far  more  developed  lymphatics,  relatively 
more  blood,  lighter  musculature,  shorter  legs  and  arms, 
and  lighter  bones,  longer  bodies  relative  to  entire  height, 
notably  larger  lower  viscera,  slightly  smaller  lungs,  rela- 
tively smaller  cerebrum  and  relatively  larger  cerebellum, 
much  smaller  hands  and  feet,  higher  arched  instep,  smaller 
teeth,  tongue,  pharynx  and  larynx,  smaller  circumference 
of  neck,  not  to  note  in  detail  the  sex-organs  proper. 


DIFFERENTIAL  DIAGNOSIS  53 

In  general,  woman  is  less  locomotor  than  man,  less 
active  in  combustion  and  more  efficient  in  digestion  and 
tion,  weaker,  and  quicker. 

l.tit  these  generalizations -are  true  only  within  the  limits 
of  race,  age,  temperament  and  to  an  extent  habitat  and 
social  environment.  The  dark  Pict  is  comparatively  slow 
in  action  ;  the  Norman  French  quick.  But  a  dark  Pict 
i^irl  is  far  quicker  than  an  old  Norman  Frenchman. 

Much  of  all  this  has  been  reduced  to  exact  statistics, 
which  are  of  no  especial  value  in  hygiene.  A  young 
woman  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  kind  usually  thinks  about  150 
thoughts  per  minute  in  the  morning;  or  some  135,000 
thoughts  per  waking  day.  A  man  of  the  same  mixed 
breed  thinks  about  130  thoughts  per  minute;  or  117,000 
thoughts  in  a  waking  day  of  the  same  length.  To  be 
more  exact,  such  a  woman  probably  does  average  a  longer 
sleeping  night  and  a  shorter  working  day  than  the  man 
by  at  least  half  an  hour.  On  this  basis,  the  difference 
between  the  two  at  the  same  age  is  some  13,000  thoughts  a 
day  in  favor  of  the  woman.  This  indubitably  explains, 
first,  why  a  woman  of  eighteen  years  is  mentally  as  old 
as  a  man  of  the  same  race  and  habitat  at  twenty  years  of 
age,  and,  second,  why  the  woman  requires  at  least  half  an 
hour  more  of  sleep. 

//  is  ivrittcn  in  The  Book  of  Common  Sense  of  every 
woman  not  to  take  health  advice  from  any  man 
Who  is  not  her  family  physician  or  otherwise  so  self- 
alienated  and  yet  desirous  of  her  physical  welfare  as  to 
be  able  to  think  of  her  bodily  needs  as  a  woman.  For 
this  reason,  even  fathers  and  brothers  and  husbands  gen- 
erally give  perilous  advice  to  women  regarding  hygiene. 

The  mensal  periodicity  of  women,  which  is  measured  as 
being  forty  times  as  great  as  that  of  men,  alone  is  enough 
to  produce  in  them  the  need  of  a  radically  different  regi- 
men.    The  physiology  of  women  differs  from  that  of  men 


54    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

considerably,  though,  of  course,  not  wholly;  we  are  all 
human,  all  have  nerves  and  feelings,  digestion  and  many 
things  else  in  common.  It  is  a  metaphysical  guess  that 
"  function  builds  structure  "  and  that  "  mind  expresses 
itself  in  body."  It  is  demonstrable  physical  truth  that 
tears  are  readier  to  woman  than  to  man  and  that  women 
suffer  more  pain  than  do  men.  Their  reactions  are  both 
quicker  and  more  extensive  than  those  of  men.  They  have 
more  and  quicker  recuperative  power.  It  is  true  especially 
of  young  women  that  an  apparently  bad  breakdown  does 
not  require  nearly  so  long  a  period  of  recovery  as  a  similar 
case  in  men.  The  necessities  of  the  biological  functions 
of  child-bearing  and  child-nursing  have  made  woman 
stronger  in  nerves,  in  digestion  and  otherwise  than  man, — 
popular  opinion  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  Strong 
nerves  mean  great  capability  of  pain.  Unfortunately  for 
the  race,  economic  man,  indifferent  to  the  welfare  of  pos- 
terity, throws  upon  many  women  correspondingly  heavier 
toil. 

In  more  than  one  American  school,  some  woman 
teacher  carries  the  real  responsibility  of  direction  and  of 
discipline  while  some  man  draws  the  salary  and  writes  the 
records  as  principal  in  name.  In  sheer  muscle  and  in 
leverage  of  bones,  woman  is  weaker  than  man ;  otherwise 
not. 


CHAPTER  IV 
SPINAL  CURVATURE 

CASE    I 

GUESS  what  one  may  as  to  the  sources  of  health  and 
mind,  all  effort  and  resistance,  however  important 
and  indeed  essential  in  our  lives,  come  at  last  to  the  spinal 
cord  as  the  reservoir  of  vital  energies.  We  may  try  to 
cheer  ourselves  up  by  cherishing  the  notion  that  "  as  our 
day,  so  shall  our  strength  be,"  but  in  our  hearts  we  all 
know  that  we  can  exhaust  needlessly  our  vital  reserves 
and  prematurely  wear  out.  Many  teachers  have  come 
to  me  to  ask  what  the  matter  is  with  teaching.  They  have 
headaches  and  indigestion  and  cannot  sleep  well ;  they 
have  lost  what  is  now  styled  u  pep."  Generally,  they  are 
ashamed  to  feel  the  way  they  do ;  they  do  not  know  what 
the  trouble  really  is ;  and  they  do  not  like  to  talk  about 
their  cases  with  other  teachers  or  with  their  friends. 

Perhaps  Case  I,  as  I  shall  describe  it,  will  convey  as 
fully  as  any  other  that  has  been  under  my  personal  obser- 
vation the  truth  that  we  need  a  very  different  hygiene 
from  that  which  is  common  to  the  schools.  Case  I  is  that 
of  a  lady  of  middle  age  who  had  taught  as  a  specialist  the 
subject  of  physical  culture  in  a  city  public  school  system 
for  a  considerable  term  of  years.  She  was  accustomed  to 
give  lessons  also  upon  physiology  and  hygiene  to  classes, 
and  to  diagnose  individuals  regularly  as  part  of  her  work. 
Intellectually,  she  was  a  very  superior  person.  She  had 
the  esthetic  sense  also.  Her  only  complaint  about  her 
health  was  that  she  often  had  pains  in  her  back  and  in 

55 


56    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

her  head.  She  was  very  enthusiastic  about  exercise  and 
walked  in  the  open  air  afternoons  and  holidays  with  for- 
titude and  with  a  sense  of  well-doing. 

That  She  was  nervous  and  thin  and  excitable,  she  knew  ; 
but  she  attributed  the  condition  to  heredity  and  to  the 
general  circumstances  of  being  a  school  teacher.  She 
believed  in  exercise  as  the  cure-all.  The  books  said  so ; 
her  superior  officers  said  so ;  it  was  the  common  opinion 
that  to  be  well  one  must  take  plenty  of  exercise  outdoors, 
and  if  not  outdoors,  then  indoors. 

But  when  examined  to  discover  the  causes  of  the  low 
body  coefficient  and  of  the  pains  and  of  the  general  notion 
that  school  teaching  must  be  hard  to  do  and  to  bear, 
Case  i  showed  up  two  conditions,  one  of  which  was  en- 
tirely unknown  to  herself.  Her  body  coefficient  was  but 
1.75.  (Body  coefficient  is  weight  in  pounds  divided  by 
height  in  inches,  which  for  women  of  most  physical 
types  at  40  years  of  age  should  be  from  2.10  to  2.70.) 
This  teacher  of  physical  culture  who  practised  calisthenics 
with  classes  for  five  hours  a  day,  who  worked  at  gym- 
nastics, who  took  long  walks  as  often  as  possible,  who 
believed  in  plenty  of  exercise,  had  three  different  spinal 
curvatures.  Of  course,  no  one  of  them  was  obvious  to 
the  observer  who  saw  her  going  about  the  rooms  of  the 
schools  or  upon  the  streets.  Her  neck  was  carried  well ; 
and  she  stood  straight,  in  truth,  considerably  too  straight. 

About  thirty-five  per  cent,  of  women  and  twenty  per 
cent,  of  men  have  at  least  one  spinal  curvature,  but  most 
spinal  curvatures  are  not  at  the  moment  serious.  Any 
spinal  curvature  may  become  serious.  The  curvature 
that  is  serious  is  making  trouble  in  some  positive  way ; 
for  example,  it  may  be  causing  pressures  upon  intra- 
spinal nerves  and  thereby  affecting  the  health  of  internal 
organs ;  or  it  may  be  harboring  the  germs  of  tuberculosis. 
In  Case  1,  the  three  spinal  curvatures  were  causing  re- 

\ 


SPINAL  CURVATURE  57 

ferred  pains,  were  increasing  spinal  shocks  and  were  de- 
priving certain  internal  organs  of  their  normal  blood  and 
nervous  supplies.  v 

Referred  pains  are  pains  placed  by  the  mind  at  some 
point  in  the  body  where  they  do  not  belong.  This  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  nerves  run  out  from  the  main  trunk  into 
branches  and,  as  it  were  twigs,  of  little  nerves;  and  a 
wound  to  a  branch  may  set  the  twigs  of  another  branch 
qui  vive  with  pain  by  psychical  mistake.  By  referred 
pains  here,  I  mean  that  the  pains  which  Case  1  suffered 
actually  occurred  in  the  spinal  cord  itself,  or  else  at  spe- 
cial points  in  the  periphery  of  her  body  not  suspected  by 
the  patient  rather  than  where  she  thought  they  were.  It 
takes  a  hundred  times  as  much  anatomy  to  understand 
this  as  is  actually  presented  in  the  little  text  books  on 
physiology  that  we  have  in  our  schools.  By  spinal  shocks, 
I  mean  that  every  time  this  lady  put  her  foot  down,  she 
had  a  slight  jar  of  the  entire  spinal  column  due  to  these 
curvatures.  A  normal  spine  is  like  a  spring  of  three 
bows ;  hers  was  like  a  staff,  and  a  disjointed  staff  at  that. 

By  the  deprivation  of  blood  supply  to  a  certain  organ 
is  indicated  the  result  of  overpressure  upon  the  nerve 
from  the  spinal  cord  that  manages  that  organ. 

What  Case  1  needed  was,  first  of  all,  to  know  that  her 
spine  was  out  of  proper  alignment  and  was  making  most 
of  her  troubles  and  that  at  her  age  the  situation  was 
irremediable ;  second,  to  change  radically  her  notions  re- 
specting exercise  for  herself.  Instead  of  walking  home 
vigorously,  of  doing  housework  on  her  feet,  and  then 
after  supper,  of  walking  or  at  least  sitting  up  for  hours 
on  hours  in  active  conversation,  she  needed  to  stroll  home 
very  quietly  on  thick,  soft  rubber  heels ;  then  to  lie  down 
for  an  hour  or  so  with  her  street  clothing  all  off,  flat  on 
her  back  upon  a  springy,  soft  bed  or  couch ;  and  to  spend 
her  evening  in  a  very  easy  chair. 


58    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

In  her  day's  work,  Case  I  needed  to  favor  her  back  as 
much  as  she  could  in  giving  model  lessons  in  the  classes. 
She  must  know  enough  not  herself  to  swing  dumbbells 
and  Indian  clubs  and  other  articles  that  add  to  the  weight 
and  shock  of  her  poor,  neglected  and  damaged  spinal 
column.  She  must  wear  as  light  clothing  as  would 
serve,  and  keep  weight  off  from] her  shoulders.  In  pub- 
lic places,  she  should  take  of?  her  outer  wrap.  Otherwise, 
Case  i  would  reach  a  few  years  later  some  one  of  several 
inevitable  troubles, —  she  might  be  bent  over  like  a  hoop, 
as  many  fine  old  ladies  are;  or  she  might  develop  very 
serious  diseases  of  the  internal  organs ;  or  she  might  go 
insane,  or  become  prematurely  senile  from  increasing 
pain. 

In  point  of  truth,  Case  I  suddenly  changed  to  the  plan 
indicated  and  in  seven  months  showed  a  gain  of  fifteen 
pounds  and  a  rosy,  smiling  face ;  but  she  was  "  doing 
less  work  "  day  by  day.  She  will  live,  however,  years 
and  years  longer,  and  the  total  of  work  to  her  credit  at 
death  will  be  far  greater  than  if  she  had  continued  as 
before. 

The  second  trouble,  which  Case  I  knew  she  had,  was  a 
technical  one  for  which  the  remedy  sought  and  prescribed 
was  very  fashionable  until  a  few  years  ago.  She  had 
four  bridges  in  her  mouth  set  on  as  many  roots  of  teeth ; 
they  had  cost  her  $250,  and  she  was  not  taking  pains 
enough  to  keep  them  perfectly  clean  all  the  time.  Plates 
are  far  better  for  a  mouth  so  badly  wrecked.  (See 
Chapter  27.) 


EXCESSIVE   FAITH    IN    EXERCISE 

From  this  Case,  one  may  well  learn  that  exercise  is 
not  the  key  to  health ;  is  not  the  most  important  of  all 
hygienic  prescriptions;  is  far  from  a  cure-all.     No  one 


SPINAL  CURVATURE  59 

<\m  see  and  feel  one's  own  back;  the  diagnosis  of  the 
spina]  condition  must  be  made  by  another,  and  it  should 
be  made  by  one  who  really  knows  and  understands  the 
spine.  Often,  a  proper  diagnosis  involves  the  taking  of 
X-ray  photographs  by  an  expert.  Physical  culture  super- 
visors and  teachers  seldom  know  anything  at  all  about  the 
spine.  It  is  a  very  common  thing  for  an  expert  to  go 
over  a  case  where  the  school  specialist  has  pronounced  a 
spine  first  class  and  to  find  right  there  a  bad  curve ;  and 
once  in  awhile,  a  case  comes  along  that  is  pronounced 
bad  when  in  truth  the  spinal  situation  is  excellent  and 
the  complaint  is  due  to  a  different  cause.  A  prominent 
bone  along  the  column  at  the  neck  is  an  anatomical  and 
harmless  trait  of  some  races.  A  spine  may  be  straight 
where  it  should  curve ;  which  means  that  the  straight 
spine  really  curves  from  the  norm,  and  medically  consid- 
ered, constitutes  an  objectionable  curvature. 

Just  now  with  the  revived  enthusiasm  for  military  life, 
for  army  drill,  for  the  tent  out  in  the  open,  we  are  having 
a  furore  of  interest  in  exercise  for  all  in  complete  indif- 
ference to  the  truth  that  the  men  in  khaki  were  a  selected 
lot  and  that  even  among  them  were  some  who  because  of 
spinal  curvatures  (or  some  other  deficiencies  to  be  dis- 
cussed later)  were  worse  rather  than  better  off  from  their 
drill  with  guns. 

INDIVIDUAL  DIAGNOSIS 

The  true  key  to  hygiene,  of  course,  is  that  employed  by 
the  medical  profession;  otherwise,  there  would  be  no 
medical  profession.  This  key  to  every  true  profession 
is  individual  diagnosis.  As  every  human  mind  is  a  differ- 
ent mind,  as  every  law  case  is  a  different  case,  as  every 
sinner  who  consults  his  minister  presents  special  elements 
in  his  sinfulness,  so  every  person  who  is  not  perfectly 


60    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

well  and  never  has  any  pain  at  all  is  a  special  case  and 
requires  individual  diagnosis. 

In  consequence,  the  teacher  will,  first  of  all,  make  a 
study  of  his  own  case  and  get  from  real  physicians  and 
physiological  experts  assistance  in  diagnosing  his  own 
troubles ;  and,  second,  every  person  who  assumes  to  be  a 
teacher  of  physiology  and  hygiene  for  children  and  youth 
will  begin  to  think  that  here  at  least  is  a  field  worth  inves- 
tigating evenings  and  holidays  and  vacation  times  lest  the 
teacher  shall  be  himself  or  herself  a  blind  leader  of  the 
blind. 

It  used  to  be  thought  a  symptom  of  poor  sense  to  think 
much  about  one's  insides,  and  the  man  or  woman  who 
wished  to  read  medical  books  was  regarded  as  queer  or 
even  worse;  but  in  these  times  of  the  light  of  modern 
science,  it  is  the  other  way  about.  All  wise  persons  read 
medical  books  and  journals  and  get  from  their  physicians 
not  only  prescriptions  for  specific  illnesses  but  also  infor- 
mation along  the  lines  of  sanitation  and  hygiene. 

In  order  that  this  chapter  may  not  be  left  up  in  the  air 
and  give  the  impression  of  dealing  too  emphatically  with 
a  very  few  matters  in  a  very  wide  field,  allow  me  to  add 
that  spinal  curvatures  are  not  the  sole  cause  of  all  troubles, 
nor  is  individual  diagnosis  the  beginning,  middle  and  end 
of  personal  hygiene.  No  one  thing  is  sufficient,  not  even 
common  sense,  which  often  errs  egregiously  and  fatally. 

The  purpose  of  this  chapter  has  been  to  attack  and 
destroy  the  too  general  custom  of  reliance  upon  exercise 
to  secure  and  to  maintain  health.  Incidentally,  I  have 
meant  to  present  the  very  common  case  of  spinal  curva- 
ture causing  damage  to  the  health  of  individuals  unaware 
of  their  defect. 


CHAPTER  V 
IMPERFECT  DIGESTION 

CASE    2 

THE  second  case  to  which  I  desire  to  direct  attention 
is  that  of  a  woman  who  taught  the  modern  lan- 
guages in  the  same  high  school  for  nearly  twenty  years 
of  physical  exaltation  alternating  with  wretchedness  and 
who  then,  when  her  health  gave  out  utterly,  changed  to 
another  occupation  to  find  herself  two  years  later  as  well 
apparently  as  possible  to  one  of  her  age  and  particular 
diathesis.  This  showed  that  the  occupation  was  more 
than  half  the  cause  of  her  near-invalidism.  As  a  teacher, 
she,  was,  however,  more  often  sick  and  worse  sick  than 
necessary  under  the  conditions. 

Miss  J.  T.  is  a  woman  five  feet  four  inches  in  height, 
light  bones,  small  hands  and  feet,  weight  running  about 
no  pounds,  fair-haired  with  light  blue  eyes.  Her  body 
coefficient,  therefore,  has  been  generally  about  1.72, 
showing  that  on  the  average  she  has  been  30  pounds 
under  normal  weight.  By  race,  she  is  composed  of  Dane, 
Saxon,  and  Norman  French  in  about  equal  proportions, 
with  an  obvious  trace  of  Highland  Scotch.  Her  mental 
abilities  are  distinctly  above  the  average.  She  reads  and 
speaks  English,  French,  German,  Spanish ;  knows  Latin ; 
plays  the  piano;  sings,  draws  and  paints;  is  an  expert 
stenographer,  typfct  and  bookkeeper;  conducts  amateur 
theatricals ;  and  is  an  excellent  cook  and  housekeeper. 

Contrary  to  the  opinions  of  those  who  know  nothing 
of  anatomy,  physiology  and  hygiene  —  opinions,  that  is, 

61 


62    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

generally  expressed  to  her  as  well  as  about  her  "  behind 
her  back  " —  she  has  a  strong,  finely  balanced  nervous 
system.  Nevertheless,  she  is  not  perfectly  well  and  never 
will  be  because  of  the  alimentary  canal  construction  and 
tissue.  The  history  of  the  case  is  so  typical  of  many 
teachers  as  to  be  worth  review. 


OVERWORK   AND   UNDERFEEDING 

At  twelve  years  of  age,  J.  T.  developed  a  slight  chorea, 
which  lasted  four  years  and  ended  her  regular  education 
in  public  school.  This  chorea  affected  her  eyes,  neck  and 
shoulders.  Outdoor  life  in  the  country,  a  later  educa- 
tion by  private  teachers,  the  pubertal  development,  and 
changes  of  climate  brought  her  at  twenty-eight  years  of 
age  to  her  first  breakdown  as  a  high  school  teacher.  She 
was  operated  upon  at  that  time  for  esophoria,  both  her 
eyes  being  skillfully  button-holed  to  loosen  and  lengthen 
the  internal  ocular  muscles  of  accommodation.  Since 
then,  she  has  had  much  less  frequent  headache.  But  for 
this  operation,  she  could  not  have  resumed  her  public 
work. 

Yet  the  highly  interesting  and  luminously  significant 
result  of  this  operation  as  a  medical  remedy  was  to  un- 
cover another  and  deeper  stage  of  breakdown.  She  was 
now  able  to  work  with  less  daily  headache  and  with  fewer 
absences  from  school ;  but  she  developed  occasional  hys- 
teria. These  attacks  came  on  Friday  afternoons  or  Sat- 
urday mornings.  Notwithstanding  that  the  school  au- 
thorities knew  the  main  facts  about  her  condition,  she 
was  teaching  seven  periods  a  day  of  40  minutes  each. 

She  had  a  most  capricious  appetite,  eating  too  little 
generally,  and  that  little  being  too  light  food.  An  egg 
at  breakfast  gave  her  nausea.  Usually  for  this  meal,  she 
ate  a  slice  of  toast  and  butter,  weak,  hot  coffee  and  a 


IMPERFECT  DIGESTION  63 

saucer  of  cooked  fruit  such  as  peaches  or  baked  apple. 
Her  average  intake  was  1600  to  1800  calories  per  day, 
being  but  60  per  cent  of  an  adequate  supply.  She  ate 
only  such  meats  as  the  white  of  chicken,  the  lean  of  lamb 
and  dried  beef,  some  days  no  meat  at  all. 

She  had  other  peculiarities  characteristic  of  the  defec- 
tive, stringy,  anemic  alimentary  canal  type.  She  had  ton- 
silitis  every  few  weeks  in  bad  weather  in  any  season. 
The  tonsils  were  too  light  to  develop  a  heavy  quinsy. 
Her  skin  was  supersensitive,  and  would  not  tolerate 
woolen  underwear  or  heavy  cotton.  She  preferred  silk 
but  usually  had  to  get  along  with  linen  or  cotton  of  light- 
est texture.  The  surface  of  her  body  was  always  chilly. 
On  the  least  provocation,  she  ran  temperatures  up  to  101 
degrees  or  down  to  97.5  degrees.  Though  living  on  the 
seacoast  and  being  a  good  swimmer,  she  seldom  went  in 
bathing.  She  could  not  get  a  satisfactory  reaction  as 
after-effect. 

At  thirty-seven  years  of  age,  came  the  second  break- 
down, which  seemed  to  be  a  positive  depressive  melan- 
cholia, but  was  not.  At  this  time,  she  was  literally  penni- 
less, a  condition  due  to  a  salary  very  low  relatively  to  the 
high  cost  of  living  in  the  city,  and  to  her  assisting  a 
needy  kinswoman  constantly.  Cursed  by  the  disposition 
to  worry, —  which  is  a  pathological  trait  of  this  type, —  she 
had  good  sense  enough  to  take  some  part  in  social  amuse- 
ments, and  to  read  light  novels  and  current  magazines ; 
but  not  good  sense  enough  to  go  to  bed  early  as  a  rule. 
The  breakdown  induced  a  social  reaction  that  led  sympa- 
thizing friends  and  her  physician  to  counsel  her  to  acqui- 
esce in  the  request  by  the  school  authorities  for  her  resig- 
nation. 

It  is  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  this  type  to 
realize  exactly  the  work  that  this  teacher  was  asked  to  do 
daily  for  five  days  a  week  and  forty  weeks  in  the  year. 


64    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

i.  Talk  the  modern  languages  in  recitation  with  from 
twenty  to  forty-five  pupils  in  the  classroom  at  a  time ; 
seven  periods. 

2.  Attend  to  school  discipline. 

3.  Keep  school  records. 

4.  Correct  papers  for  all  these  classes  in  the  evening 
by  artificial  light. 

5.  Prepare  amateur  theatricals  and  other  club  pro- 
grams. 

6.  Attend  faculty  meetings  of  from  one  to  three  hours' 
duration  every  two  weeks. 

7.  Plan  for  college  entrance  examinations  of  pupils. 
The  voice  work  alone  required  of  such  a  teacher  would 

tear  down  a  muscular  man. 

Change  of  occupation  —  six  months  of  freedom  from 
clock  and  calendar  brought  mental  quiet,  when  this 
woman  entered  upon  a  line  of  work  of  considerably  dif- 
ferent character. 

As  a  matter  of  personal  hygiene,  it  is  useless  to  ad- 
vise such  a  woman  to  reduce  her  hours  of  instruction. 
No  teacher  can  control  this.  To  attempt  to  control  it 
is  insubordination,  which,  of  course,  means  loss  of  posi- 
tion. 

That  this  woman  unconsciously  realized  her  physical 
unfitness  for  normal  living  is  shown  by  many  of  her 
own  actions  and  by  her  conduct  as  a  whole.  She  has 
refused  to  marry.  She  has  retreated  to  the  sidelines  and 
to  the  rear  in  all  teacher  associations  and  activities.  She 
has  never  done  church  work.  She  has  never  read  serious 
books  other  than  school  texts  and  reference  works.  She 
has  taken  no  part  in  the  movement  for  woman  suffrage. 

Summarized,  her  traits  are  these,  viz. — 

1.  Excessive  physical  activity  followed  by  prolonged, 
irritable  fatigue. 

2.  Timidity  among  strangers  and  the  unfriendly. 


I M  PERFECT  DIGESTION  65 

3.  Excessive  self-concern  with  unwillingness  to  probe 
deeply  into  its  causes. 

4.  Great  dependence  upon  her  medical  advisers. 

5.  Undereating  of  proteins  both  cereal  and  animal  and 
of  fats  and  overeating  of  sugars,  starches  and  fruit 
acids. 

6.  Insomnia ;  —  sleeping  but  an  hour  or  two  at  a 
stretch,  with  lying  abed  till  ten  or  twelve  o'clock  fre- 
quently upon  holidays. 

7.  Irregular  attacks  of  hysteria. 

8.  Worry  with  irremediable  inability  to  rationalize  her 
life. 

THE    ALIMENTARY    CANAL 

The  frail  alimentary  canal  means,  of  course,  not  only 
poor  appetite  and  poor  digestion,  but  also  poor  and  irreg- 
ular excretions  with  too  frequent  micturition.  Whether 
the  spinal  cord  or  the  alimentary  canal  is  the  older  sys- 
tem in  the  human  body,  it  is  certain  that  a  failure  of  the 
one  is  quite  as  serious  as  the  failure  of  the  other.  A 
human  body  can  rack  along  with  poor  kidneys,  with  poor 
lungs,  with  a  poor  liver  —  with  the  frailest  of  muscles, 
with  no  teeth,  with  a  skin  in  a  fever  of  eczema, —  even 
with  an  hypertrophied  heart;  but  we  live  according  to 
the  grey  matter  of  the  nervous  system  and  to  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  alimentary  canal.  In  truth,  the  whole  hu- 
man body  appears  to  be  organized  around  and  upon  the 
alimentary  canal  by  the  nervous  system. 

What,  then,  is  one  to  do  who  has  a  poor  interior  for 
one's  digestive  tract  from  pharynx  to  colon?  Especially 
what  is  the  woman  teacher  to  do? 

The  first  thing  of  all  to  do, —  the  absolutely  necessary, 

the  one  indispensable  essential  is  to  form  the  habit  of 

g  to  bed  early, —  which  means  going  to  bed  before 

one  is  very  tired  and  in  the  assurance  that  one  will  have 


66    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

ample  time  to  rest  before  getting  up, —  rest,  be  it  said, 
not  continuous  sleep,  for  it  is  assumed  that  a  person  of 
this  type  knows  that  sleep  will  not  come  to  stay  all 
night.  Make  a  short  day  of  it.  Good  sleepers  can  stand 
long  days  and  short  nights.  A  woman  teacher  of  this 
type  should  be  in  bed  at  least  eleven  hours  before  the  time 
she  is  due  in  school  the  next  day.  When  school  opens  at 
8:30  a.  m.,  the  time  to  go  to  bed  is  9:30  p.  m.  or  earlier. 

More  sleep  is  essential. —  The  human  body  has  many 
periodicities,  some  of  which  are  not  under  rational  con- 
trol; not  the  least  of  these  is  the  periodicity  known  as 
waking  and  sleeping.  These  should  alternate  as  follows, 
viz. — 

Within  every  twenty-four  hours.  1.  A  long  sleep;  2. 
A  long  waking ;  3.  A  short  sleep ;  4.  A  short  waking. 

The  ideal  clock  program  for  one  of  this  frail  alimentary 
canal  type  is  as  follows,  viz. — 

10  p.  m.  to  6  a.  m.,  sleep. 

6  a.  m.  to  4  p.  m.,  waking. 

4  p.  m.  to  5  p.  m.,  sleep. 

5  p.  m.  to  10  p.  m.,  waking. 

All  women  who  teach  need  to  sleep  every  night  before 
a  teaching  day  not  less  than  nine  hours  as  an  irreducible 
minimum. 

One  who  can  sleep  one  hour  in  the  afternoon  can  con- 
sider it  safe  to  cut  down  the  sleep  at  night  two  hours ; 
one  who  can  sleep  two  hours  in  the  afternoon  can  cut 
down  the  sleep  at  night  four  hours.  Right  here  the  rule 
ceases.  Three  hours  from  4  Ml.  to  7  p.  m.  and  then 
three  from  2  a.  m.  to  5  a.  m.  are  not  enough.  We  Ameri- 
cans are  the  only  people  on  earth  who  take  all  our  sleep 
in  one  period. 

Dietetics. —  The  second  requirement  for  a  person  of 
this  type  is  to  discover  and  adhere  to  a  proper  and  an 
adequate  diet.     There  is  no  perfect  diet  for  all  persons  of 


IMPERFECT  DIGESTION  67 

<  \cn  one  type.  Just  as  the  mind  learns  to  deal  familiarly 
with  a  particular  set  and  body  of  principles  and  ideas 
and  facts,  so  the  alimentary  canal  and  the  tissues  learn 
to  deal  successfully  with  a  particular  set  and  body  of 
foods,  drinks  and  condiments.  There  must,  however,  be 
an  apportionment  within  limitations  for  proteins,  fats, 
starches  and  fruit  acids.  It  is  altogether  wrong  to  eat 
too  little.  As  the  common  error  of  the  sinewy  motor 
is  to  eat  too  much  meat  and  to  carry  overloads  of  pro- 
teins, crowding  the  liver  and  kidneys  with  uric  acid,  so 
it  is  the  common  error  of  these  "  nervous  "  motor  per- 
sons to  undereat  of  proteins.  In  many  instances,  putting 
such  persons  on  mutton,  prescribing  lean  and  fat  to- 
gether, on  good  bread  with  plenty  of  butter  and  of  pea- 
nut butter  larded  on,  and  on  cabbage  and  cauliflower  to 
expand  their  alimentary  tract,  seems  like  half  of  the 
cure.  The  mineral  contents  of  tomatoes  and  of  white 
potatoes  thoroughly  cooked  are  good  for  most  of  these 
teachers. 

A  person  of  this  type  must  not  eat  between  meals, 
though  in  some  cases  four  meals  a  day  seem  to  help. 
Let  this  fourth  meal  be  good  ice  cream  and  crackers  at  4 
p.  m.,  not  "  a  late  supper." 

OTHER    MODES   OF    RELIEF 

There  are  other  helps.  One  is  to  cease  using  the  vocal 
organs  at  home,  talking  as  little  as  politeness  permits. 
Another  is  to  take  a  daily  neutral  or  warm  bath  before 
going  to  bed, —  900  to  ioo°  Fahrenheit.  Another  is  to 
cise  every  muscle  every  day  at  least  a  little.  The 
alimentary  canal  is  strengthened  by  quiet,  strong  twisting^ 
and  bendings  of  the  trunk.  The  neck  is  helped  by  spe- 
cial exercises  daily. 

A  person  of  this  type  who  continues  to  neglect  any  seri- 


(&  THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

cms  dental  trouble,  whether  decay  or  impacted  teeth  (often 
hidden  in  the  jaw)  or  pyorrhea,  never  gets  well.  The 
teeth  must  be  made  clean  and  easy  in  the  mouth,  and  the 
gums  hardened  by  plenty  of  brushing.  Not  infrequently 
a  person  of  this  type  has  not  only  hypertrophied  tonsils 
but  adenoids  also.  When  such  is  the  case,  surgical  relief 
should  be  had.  This  patient,  however,  had  no  adenoidal 
troubles ;  and  her  tonsils  were  not  usually  swollen.  Un- 
doubtedly if  her  tonsils  had  been  removed  at  twelve 
years  of  age  or  so,  she  would  have  grown  into  a  stronger 
woman.  But  the  tonsilitis  of  her  later  years  was  only 
one  symptom  of  the  whole  alimentary  canal  inferiority. 

Anyone  whose  condition  resembles  that  of  this  Case  2 
should  wear  in  winter  very  warm  outer  garments  and 
overshoes  whenever  the  ground  is  wet  or  cold.  Much 
physical  exercise  is  not  indicated.  The  best  of  all  is  a 
half  hour  of  outdoor  walking  rapidly  alone.  It  is  bad 
for  such  a  person  to  be  always  with  others  listening  or 
talking.  While  the  sensorium  may  be  fine  (as  in  Case  2 
here)  the  supply  of  fresh  good  blood  is  poor,  and  the 
worn  out  tissues  are  replenished  but  slowly. 

There  is  some  truth  in  the  opinion  that  "  if  such  a  per- 
son had  less  brains,  she  would  have  better  health."  The 
mind  is  robbing  the  body.  The  remedy  is  to  use  the 
14  brains  "  less  when  out  of  the  schoolroom. 

School  authorities  dealing  with  these  anemic  alimentary 
canal  cases  of  general  physical  impoverishment  should  re- 
member that  it  is  cruel  to  encourage  them  to  work  harder 
and  cruel  to  advise  them  to  leave  the  profession,  for 
they  are  very  sensitive,  indeed  oversensitive,  too  consci- 
entious generally.  It  is,  however,  true  notwithstanding 
that  an  alimentary  canal  muscularly  weak  in  its  peristalsis 
and  vermicular  action  and  chemically  weak  in  its  digestive 
juices  does  disqualify  one  from  teaching,  pleading,  preach- 
ing or  healing  joyfully  and  vitally.     Such  a  person  should 


IMPERFECT  DIGESTION  69 

be  a  gardener  or  a  poultry  man,  a  clerk  in  office,  store  or 
bank,  or  an  artist  or  musician.  A  person  of  this  diathesis 
does  better  in  kindergarten  or  low  primary  grade  than 
anywhere  else  in  teaching.  Worst  of  all  for  them, — 
worse  than  college  instructing,  far  worse  than  supervis- 
ing art  or  music, —  is  teaching  in  the  grammar  grades. 

Whether  one  of  this  diathesis  can  completely  overhaul 
the  alimentary  canal  and  make  it  effective  and  strong 
by  two  or  three  years  of  outdoor  life  in  the  woods  and  by 
the  sea  in  alternation,  is  doubtful ;  moreover,  but  few 
teachers  have  any  such  opportunity.  For  Case  2,  the 
only  practical  choice  is  the  dilemma, —  get  into  some  other 
kind  of  work  or  radically  change  the  daily  program.  One 
course  takes  a  sudden  resolution;  the  other  takes  per- 
sistence in  the  determination  to  overcome  the  world  and 
oneself  by  scientific  health  control.  Force  in  action  and 
strength  of  will  are,  however,  moral  qualities  seldom 
to  be  found  in  these  victims  of  heredity  and  of  family 
errors  in  the  early  regimen. 

At  forty-one  years  of  age,  this  woman  changed  to  a 
third  occupation,  with  a  great  variety  of  duties  but  free 
from  all  supervision  by  other  persons  temperamentally 
unlike  herself,  and  when  last  heard  from,  a  year  later, 
was  in  such  excellent  health  as  to  surprise  all  her  friends, 
especially  her  medical  advisers.  Numerous  executive 
interests  with  travel  and  no  heavy  responsibilities  are 
clearly  desirable  for  women  of  this  diathesis. 


CHAPTER  VI 
NERVOUS  WRECKAGE 

CASE  3 

CASE  3  is  that  of  a  man  regarding  whom  worse  er- 
rors by  physicians,  friends  and  other  counsellors 
could  not  possibly  have  been  made  without  killing  him. 
Twice  he  was  turned  over  as  dead, —  once  at  twenty- 
five  years  of  age,  and  a  second  time  at  forty  years.  The 
case  has  a  history  of  two  important  epochs  only,  and  is 
otherwise  uninteresting.  The  management  of  this  case 
a  generation  ago  erred  sincerely  for  want  of  modern 
knowledge,  the  management  of  the  later  wreckage  not 
many  years  ago  erred  for  want  of  personal  attention  to 
all  the  factors.  In  each  instance,  the  recoveries  were 
due  to  superior  care  and  to  surgery.  The  Case  himself 
reports  that  his  present  life  is  due  to  the  triumphs  of 
surgery. 

Most  of  the  illnesses  of  teachers  are  remediable  by 
medical  care,  but  were  one  to  allow  the  impression  to  be 
formed  strongly  in  the  first  part  of  this  text  that  hygiene 
and  medicine  will  cure  all  troubles,  the  whole  effect  of 
this  discussion  would  be  ^o  false  as  to  be  dangerous. 
In  some  instances,  the  only  certain  remedy  is  surgery. 
Medicine  may  give  relief ;  the  knife  cures. 

Case  3  is  a  man  of  English-Welsh  stock,  by  nature 
energetic  and  persistent,  a  combination  by  no  means  fav- 
orable to  health.  He  was  an  athlete,  ate  too  much  meat, 
took  too  much  exercise  indoors  and  out, —  gymnastics, 
driving,  walking,  etc., —  taught  too  many  hours  a  day, 
had  too  many  professional  and  social  engagements;  and 

7o 


NERVOUS  WRECKAGE  71 

became  the  victim  of  autointoxication  in  the  worst  form. 
He  was  M  bumped  out "  of  the  schoolroom  by  a  case  of 
pink  eye  then  epidemic,  which  kept  him  awake  for  four- 
teen days,  of  course,  only  because  of  the  combination  of 
pain  with  excessive  toxic  poisoning.  This  patient  lay 
in  a  coma  for  twenty-nine  days  in  August ;  and  the  rela- 
tives waited  those  four  weeks  for  the  funeral.  Never- 
theless he  came  back  to  consciousness  and  for  several 
years  dragged  out  an  existence  unable  to  read,  but  by  the 
help  of  his  wife  managing  to  hold  small  teaching  posi- 
tions one  after  another.  He  then  came  into  the  hands 
of  an  expert  oculist  who  operated  upon  both  eyes.  Al- 
most immediately  thereafter  his  physical  vigor  returned. 
But  he  persisted  in  his  errors  of  diet  and  of  regimen. 

The  second  collapse  was  due  to  the  wearing  out  of 
the  organs  of  excretion.  Again,  he  fell  into  a  coma 
which  lasted  several  days;  but  static  electricity  was  re- 
sorted to  with  immediate  success.  He  recovered  suffi- 
ciently to  get  on  his  feet;  but  again  was  only  dragging 
out  an  existence  when  three  surgeons  took  him  in  hand. 
One  opened  up  his  nasal  passages  to  give  him  more  air, 
another  pulled  out  a  dozen  sound  teeth  because  their  gums 
were  infected  with  pyorrhea;  and  a  third  cleaned  his 
bladder  and  kidneys  and  liver,  in  several  operations,  of 
calculi  and  stone.  These  remedies  took  several  years. 
Since  then,  completely  changing  his  diet  and  regimen,  he 
has  never  had  any  other  illness  than  is  inevitable  when 
the  liver  and  kidneys  have  been  overworked  and  partly 
destroyed  in  earlier  life.  What  he  has  left  in  the  way  of 
interior  organs  work  well. 

The  second  collapse,  however,  was  not  due  wholly  to 
errors  of  diet  but  in  part  to  a  concussion  of  the  spine 
at  the  point  of  exit  and  entry  of  the  kidney  nerves.  Mas- 
sage, pediatrics,  and  physiological  rest  have  cured  the 
spine  at  this  point. 


-J2  THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 


RESPONSIBILITY    WITHOUT   AUTHORITY 

Case  3,  which  might  be  duplicated  among  women,  illus 
trates  several  points.  One  is  that  for  the  good  of  their 
bodies  teaching  is  altogether  too  interesting  to  some 
minds.  This  man  was  a  zealot  as  a  teacher  and  twice 
played  out  largely  from  that  cause,  which  is  no  reason 
but  a  sin.  Many  teachers  have  the  notion  that  it  is  their 
duty  to  carry  the  world  upon  their  shoulders.  This 
notion  may  be  proper  enough  in  a  statesman  in  high  office 
or  in  the  religious  reformer  or  prelate ;  but  it  is  inappro- 
priate in  the  teacher  whose  function,  whether  rightly  or 
not,  is  socially  a  subordinate  one.  Teachers  have  no 
authority  and  no  hearing  from  the  public  such  as  to  jus- 
tify any  assumption  that  the  responsibility  for  social  prog- 
ress rests  upon  them.  Case  3  visited  parents  and  even 
tried  to  influence  higher  school  authorities  until  he  made 
himself  sick  and  thereby  relieved  the  world  of  his  im- 
portunities for  change  and  betterment.  This  applies  to 
him  in  both  the  self -destructive  epochs  of  his  life. 

But  there  is  much  else  also  in  this  case.  The  patient 
ate  almost  exclusively  bread,  meat,  milk  and  eggs ;  almost 
no  vegetables;  very  little  fruit;  no  candy.  He  drank 
chocolate  to  excess.  He  ate  meat  at  almost  every  meal, 
—  usually  lean  beef.  According  to  his  report,  he  ate 
meat  as  his  main  diet  from  infancy.  Until  taken  in 
hand  by  modern  surgeons  and  dietitians,  he  "  couldn't 
remember  a  lunch,  a  dinner  or  a  supper  without  meat." 

A  third  defect  in  Case  3  was  lack  of  sleep.  His  meat 
diet  kept  him  alert  and  wakeful.  He  went  to  bed  at 
twelve  and  arose  at  five,  or  at  eleven  to  rise  at  four; 
and  went  promptly  to  work.  Once  a  week,  usually  Sat- 
urday or  Sunday  afternoon,  he  took  a  long  nap.  Even 
after  his  first  illness  and  recovery,  he  had  great  powers 
of  exercise, —  walked  twenty  miles  at  a  stretch,  or  rode 


NERVOUS  WRECKAGE  73 

horseback  all  afternoon.  He  complains  that  the  present 
diet  has  cut  down  his  physical  strength;  but  the  truth 
is  that  his  present  comparative  weakness  is  due  almost 
entirely  to  his  former  mode  of  life,  which  has  injured 
him  irrecoverably  at  many  points  and  in  many  ways. 

A  fourth  defect  of  Case  3  was  inattention  to  his  daily 
bowel  movements  and  to  daily  bathing.  He  passed  from 
constipation  to  diarrhea  every  few  weeks;  and  some- 
times failed  even  to  take  a  weekly  hot  bath  with  soap 
lather.  His  bowels  were  no  more  sluggish,  however,  than 
was  his  skin.  Similarly,  he  often  neglected  to  brush  his 
teeth  twice  a  day.  He  was  "  a  very  busy  man  " ;  in  the 
main,  he  was  busy  upon  self-imposed  tasks  that  might 
have  been  avoided.  Sometimes  he  did  not  change  his 
underwear  for  several  days,  night  or  day. 

Such  is  the  history  of  this  case.  Such  is  its  explana- 
tion. But  there  are  deeper  causes  than  such  as  have 
been  indicated.  Case  3  is  sinewy  motor,  long,  strong,  lean, 
eager,  alert  and  ambitious.  His  nerves  could  scarcely 
be  better.  Able  to  digest  anything,  he  did  not  learn  until 
well  into  middle  life  what  to  eat.  Until  fifty  years  old, 
he  did  not  know  what  it  is  to  have  a  heart  and  a  pair  of 
lungs;  he  could  run  uphill  without  difficulty  in  these 
organs.  He  lacked  what  is  called  "  common  sense," — 
which  in  this  instance  means  somesthesia,  the  sense  of 
the  condition  of  all  parts  of  his  body.  He  neglected 
himself. 

Teaching  has  many  such  enthusiasts.  They  sit  up  all 
night  reading  papers  and  drinking  coffee,  tea,  or  choco- 
late. They  prepare  long  reports  and  hold  long  faculty 
meetings,  ignorant  that  the  long-continued  sitting  required 
to  read  the  long  report  or  to  endure  the  long  faculty 
discussions  are  directly  injurious  to  all  the  organized  tis- 
sues. It  is  very  bad  for  the  health  to  fail  for  hours  at 
a  stretch  to  move  about  and  exercise  the  internal  organs. 


74    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Case  3  would  sit  for  hours  on  hours  preparing  his  class 
lessons,  reading,  reading  motionless.  His  excess  in  ex- 
ercise did  not,  as  he  imagined,  make  up  for  progressive 
deterioration  of  most  of  his  internal  organs. 

Fortunately  for  this  man  as  well  as  for  the  human  race 
generally,  there  is  a  marked  social  tendency  to  give  to 
the  old  easier  duties,  though  perhaps  more  responsibili- 
ties, than  they  ever  carried  in  their  young  manhood  or 
womanhood.  Case  3  found  in  transfer  from  high  school 
to  university  teaching,  after  some  post-graduate  years, 
rather  late  in  life,  a  field  called  by  himself  and  friends 
"  more  congenial "  but  seriously  considered  superior  in 
but  one  important  respect  to  his  former  activities, —  less 
pressure  from  the  external  world,  more  freedom  of  in- 
ternal choice.  A  field  that  would  have  seemed  to  him  at 
twenty-five  years  of  age  painfully  restricted  proved  at 
fifty  years  to  be  well  adapted  to  his  temperament  and 
experience. 


CHAPTER  VII 
IGNORANCE  OF  LUNG  AND  OTHER  HYGIENE 

CASES  4   AND   5 

CASES  4  and  5  may  well  be  considered  together,  since 
they  illustrate  the  same  point. 

Case  4  was  a  young  woman,  bred  in  the  country,  vital 
in  every  ounce  of  her  body, —  a  red  Kelt,  Irish  at  that. 
She  was  a  class  teacher  until  at  only  twenty-five  years  of 
age  she  was  made  supervising  principal.  An  excellent 
singer,  she  was  often  called  upon  to  lead  public  meetings 
at  church  and  elsewhere.  She  had  splendid  energy, 
radiated  goodwill,  and  displayed  tact  in  all  her  school 
relations. 

One  afternoon  in  November,  being  the  third  month 
as  supervising  principal,  with  a  heavy  catarrhal  cold  and 
a  racking  cough,  she  went  to  her  city  school  superin- 
tendent and  complained  that  the  office  in  the  fine  new 
school  building  had  no  heat  and  added  that  she  had  to 
sing  the  next  evening  in  a  big  church  gathering.  The 
superintendent  advised  her  to  see  her  physician  and  to 
stay  at  home  the  next  day.  She  saw  her  physician,  who 
told  her  to  go  home  and  stay  abed  until  he  could  call 
the  next  morning.  But  she  did  not  stay  abed.  She  did 
not  cancel  the  singing  engagement.  Evening  came  and 
rain  and  sleet,  but  Case  4,  putting  on  raincoat  and  over- 
shoes, went  to  the  church  and  sang.  They  took  her 
home  very  ill.  Six  weeks  later,  she  died  of  quick  con- 
sumption. 

Case  5  was  a  woman  of  forty-five  years  of  age,  who 


76    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

had  taught  and  managed  a  private  school  for  many  years. 
She  was  of  Danish  stock  with  a  dark  Pict  strain, —  of 
notably  muscular  physique.  For  a  year  her  health  had 
been  failing ;  but  she  had  never  called  or  visited  a  physi- 
cian in  all  her  life,  and  she  proposed  to  outbrave  her 
inner  sense  of  failing  health.  She  took  to  drinking 
coffee, —  as  many  as  fifteen  and  even  eighteen  cups  a  day. 
Also,  she  acquired  insomnia.  Because  her  muscular 
strength  remained  and  her  appetite  and  hunger  likewise, 
she  thought  that  the  condition  would  wear  out  and  that 
she  would  soon  feel  better.  One  rainy  day,  she  took 
a  long  walk  and  got  very  wet.  Four  days  later,  after 
eating  a  generous  beefsteak,  she  was  taken  with  the 
pneumonia  spasm ;  and  five  days  later,  during  which  she 
explained  to  three  physicians  and  two  trained  nurses,  the 
foregoing  facts,  she  became  unconscious,  dying  in  her 
tenth  hour  of  that  condition,  despite  oxygen  and  every 
other  known  and  well-approved  remedy. 

In  both  cases,  their  lungs  gave  out. 

In  both  cases,  they  rejoiced  in  hitherto  "  perfect 
health." 

In  both  cases,  they  failed  to  read  their  premonitory 
symptoms. 

In  both  cases,  they  raced  to  their  deaths. 
•   In  both  cases,  they  disregarded  bad  weather  and  de- 
veloped infectious  diseases  whose  germs,  of  course,  they 
already  carried. 

In  both  cases,  their  minds  were  so  wholly  absorbed  in 
their  own  duties  as  to  be  unable  to  think  of  themselves 
with  the  result  that  the  world  lost  richly  valuable  lives. 

The  first  of  these  cases  exposed  herself  during  her 
monthly  sickness  of  menstruation.  If  she  had  stayed  in 
bed  those  two  bad  days,  and  if  she  had  learned  then  and 
there  to  care  for  her  health,  it  is  quite  possible  that  she 
would  never  have  developed  tuberculosis.     Eighty  per 


IGNORANCE  OF  HYGIENE  77 

Cent  of  civilized  human  beings  show  upon  post  mortem 
autopsies  that  they  had  large  or  small  areas  of  tubercu- 
lar infection  that  had  been  healed  by  returning  health. 
'"  Go  to  bed  and  get  well  "  is  the  first  of  all  hygiene  rules. 
The  second  case  here  died  of  pneumonia  at  the  crisis 
of  the  menopause.  Her  age  at  death  was  forty-five  years 
and  one  week.  Five  years  later,  a  sister  of  this  patient 
died  at  the  age  of  forty-four  years,  eleven  months  and 
three  weeks  also  at  the  crisis  of  the  menopause  from  focal 
infections  that  had  destroyed  her  heart  and  kidneys  as 
working  organs.  She  also  was  a  teacher  in  private  em- 
ployment. 

INTERWOVEN    CAUSES 

These  three  cases  show  of  what  high  importance  it  is 
for  women  to  regard  their  bodily  conditions  at  the  low 
ebbs  of  the  menstrual  period  and  of  the  cessation  of 
menstruation. 

Every  case  so  far  suggested  is  one  of  enslavement  to 
teaching,  social  enslavement  that  in  the  end  defeats  its 
own  motive  to  do  all  that  one  can  for  teaching. 

But  these  are  not  all  the  facts  to  be  observed  in  Cases 
4  and  5  as  warnings  to  others.  The  fair  Irish  girl  of 
the  buoyant  spirit  had  seemed  to  eat  enough  to  be  amply 
strong  to  resist  tubercular  infection.  But  the  truth  was 
otherwise.  She  had  overeaten  of  white  bread,  white 
potatoes,  vegetables,  fruit  and  candy,  and  undereaten  of 
meat,  eggs  and  milk.  In  addition,  she  took  a  lot  of  exer- 
:  she  was  indeed  very  active;  but  she  did  not  take 
all-around  exercise.  She  walked,  she  sang,  she  did  no 
trunk  work;  she  went  to  bed  late;  and  she  wore  tight 
corsets!  Her  splendid  vitality  was  a  delusion,  for  her 
blood  stream  did  not  carry  enough  phagocytes  to  defeat 
the  tuberculosis  germs.  Her  tissues  were  watery,  she 
was  a  blooming  lass,  lovely  to  look  upon,  but  she  had  not 


78    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

been  brought  up  outdoors  as  an  Irish  peasant,  and  there 
were  no  sea  breezes  in  her  blood.  On  the  contrary,  she 
had  the  city  notion  that  her  waist  should  be  small;  and 
she  was  ignorant  of  the  rule  to  exercise  every  muscle 
internal  and  external  every  day. 

The  solid  and  apparently  sound  Danish  woman  with  her 
wonderful  qualities  executive  and  pedagogical  did  indeed 
last  twenty  years  longer  than  the  other ;  but  she  died  just 
as  unnecessarily.  Any  person  ought  to  know  that  a 
craving  for  fifteen  cups  of  coffee  a  day  indicates  some- 
thing seriously  wrong  in  one's  body.  Two  days  before 
she  had  the  pneumonia  spasm,  she  had  a  terrible  pain 
under  her  shoulder  blades;  but  she  told  no  one  else, 
thinking  that  she  had  strained  her  back  doing  something, 
she  did  not  remember  what.  We  should  teach  in  our 
schools  the  meanings  of  some  of  these  striking  and  char- 
acteristic symptoms.  A  sharp,  strong  pain  under  the 
shoulder  blades  often  forewarns  of  pneumonia.  Going 
to  bed  at  once  and  sending  someone  for  a  doctor  will 
almost  always  prevent  the  pneumonia  spasm.  That  pre- 
vented, the  chances  of  recovery  are  10  to  i.  Experienced, 
the  chances  of  recovery  are  only  i  to  i.  If  this  woman 
had  not  worn  tight  corsets  and  had  practiced  lung  exer- 
cises, pneumonia  would  probably  not  have  developed. 

Both  these  women  were  living  in  schoolroom  dust. 
School  teachers  are  peculiarly  liable  to  lung  diseases  be- 
because  of  dust.  There  is  a  higher  rate  of  mortality 
from  tuberculosis  among  school  teachers  than  among 
stonecutters,  whose  high  rate  is  due  to  their  occupation. 
The  reason  for  this  is  the  insanitary  condition  of  the 
schoolroom  —  lack  of  ventilation,  overheating,  lack  of 
light  —  and  the  sedentary  nature  »of  the  teacher's  work. 

The  public  school  had  to  try  out  two  other  teachers 
for  several  months  in  each  case  before  finding  one  to 
make  a  principal  as  good  as  Case  4  was ;  and  two  years 


IGNORANCE  OF  HYGIENE  79 

after  Case  5  died,  the  private  school  closed  its  doors  from 
failure  to  replace  this  woman  who  had  run  it  success- 
fully for  many  years.  Early  death  is  a  heavy  debit  upon 
education. 

Until  recent  years,  every  city  and  county  school  super- 
intendent in  the  land  might  have  recounted  cases  similar 
to  these ;  but  now  while  we  are  instituting  systematic 
anthropometry  and  medical  inspection  in  our  schools  for 
the  children  and  youth,  we  are  beginning  also  to  proceed 
upon  the  theory  that  the  teachers  also  should  be  super- 
vised upon  health  lines  and  be  glad  of  such  supervision. 
For  them,  of  course,  it  is  provided  by  their  own  private 
physicians  who  report,  upon  necessity,  to  the  public  au- 
thorities ;  but  we  have  nobly  outgrown  the  old  notion 
that  a  teacher  in  the  care  of  the  children  of  other  persons 
has  "  the  right "  to  be  as  ill  or  as  weak  as  he  or  she 
wishes  to  be.  We  know  that  it  is  very  much  the  duty  of 
the  public  to  protect  itself  by  having  all  teachers  regu- 
larly and  frequently  instructed  in  personal  hygiene  that 
they  may  be  as  well  as  possible  and  protected  by  knowl- 
edge from  such  unwise  courses  as  these  indicated  in  this 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
FATAL  OVERWORK 

CASE  6 

CASE  6  is  that  of  a  man  clearly  of  old  Black  British 
breed,  heavy,  cheerful,  quiet,  domestic,  good.  He 
was  about  forty  years  of  age, —  taught  the  last  grade  of 
grammar  school  and  in  the  evening  school.  Summers,  he 
farmed  in  the  mountains  for  his  health  and  pleasure.  A 
joyous,  genial  soul,  the  last  of  all  thoughts  one  would 
naturally  have  of  him  would  have  been  death  from  "  nerv- 
ous exhaustion." 

He  stood  about  5  feet  9  inches  and  weighed  290  pounds. 
He  was  the  most  popular  of  the  many  teachers  in  a  large 
public  school  and  also  in  the  evening  school.  Foreigners 
(mostly  Russians  and  Russian  Jews)  immensely  admired 
him.  His  body  coefficient,  4.2,  was  suggestive  of  prob- 
able weakness  at  some  points  to  the  medical  mind.  He 
ate  but  two  meals  a  day, —  a  moderate  breakfast  of 
cereals,  toast,  egg,  bacon  or  chop,  coffee, —  and  a  heavy 
dinner.  His  nutrition  intake  was  large  even  for  his 
weight,  but  his  metabolism  seemed  perfect. 

The  trouble  began  with  his  election  to  an  important 
post  in  the  city  teachers'  association  at  the  time  of  a 
great  campaign  for  educational  improvement  through 
public  appeals  in  the  newspapers  and  in  city  politics.  The 
first  symptom  of  trouble  was  insomnia.  The  patient  took 
walks  regularly,  his  bowel  movements  were  satisfactory, 
there  was  no  albuminaria  of  the  urine.  But  he  could  not 
sleep  soundly  all  night.     At  midyear,  he  was  promoted  to 

80 


FATAL  OVERWORK  81 

be  a  high  school  principal,  but  entered  upon  his  duties 
with  misgivings.  Conditions  were  such  that  he  retained 
his  evening  school  classes.  He  had  a  wife  of  very  quiet, 
helpful  disposition  upon  whom  he  relied  much.  There 
were  no  children. 

Case  6  left  his  home  (three  rooms  in  a  boarding  house) 
at  seven-thirty  o'clock  in  the  morning;  came  home  at  four 
or  five  in  the  afternoon;  left  again  at  six-thirty  and  was 
home  by  ten-thirty  almost  always.  He  spent  Sunday  very 
quietly.  Saturday,  however,  usually  found  him  at  his 
school. 

In  the  spring,  night  sweats  developed ;  but  he  managed 
to  get  through  the  school  year.  (Night  school  closed  in 
April.)  By  June  25,  he  was  on  his  mountain  farm;  he 
tried  to  work  in  the  orchard,  in  the  woodlot  and  hayfield, 
but  failed.  About  all  that  he  could  do  successfully  was 
to  care  for  the  cows  and  poultry.  His  muscular  energies 
were  dying  out,  and  even  by  the  end  of  August,  he  had 
not  recovered  the  power  of  sleep.  Returning  to  his 
work,  by  December,  he  had  lost  100  pounds  and  had 
grown  very  feeble.  In  February,  one  cold  day,  late  in 
the  afternoon,  he  collapsed  at  the  school  and  was  taken 
home.  A  month  later,  he  found  his  way  back  to  school, 
but  in  April  he  was  granted  a  leave  of  absence  and 
was  carried  to  a  sanitarium  hundreds  of  miles  away, 
where  he  died  that  summer  from  no  obvious  direct  cause. 
Almost  up  to  the  very  end,  he  wrote  letters  of  the  most 
sanguine,  optimistic  character  to  his  friends.  He  never 
complained  to  his- wife  or  to  his  physicians.  He  did  not 
go  suddenly  all  to  pieces.  His  strength  simply  wore  out ; 
the  flame  of  life  died  down,  stage  by  stage. 

Such  a  condition  does  not  proceed  without  causation. 
The  event  proved  that  he  was  not  adapted  temperamen- 
tally to  school  work. 


82    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 


THE   DANGER    IN    HIGH    VITALITY 

We  come  here  to  modern  science.  The  adrenal  glands 
above  the  kidneys  secrete  adrenalin  and  upon  provoca- 
tion excrete  it, —  in  anger,  fear,  enthusiasm,  any  excite- 
ment. The  muscles  tighten,  the  brain  quickens.  The  ef- 
fect lasts  twenty  minutes,  forty  minutes,  an  hour.  Then 
comes  return  of  the  adrenalin  from  the  tissues  back  to  the 
glands ;  and  quiet  reigns  in  the  body  again.  The  pituitary 
glands  are  involved  in  the  same  cycle.  In  this  case,  the 
pituitary  fluid  was  drowned  out  by  the  adrenalin. 

Now  a  normal  man  with  a  body  coefficient  (say)  of 
2.5  (height  5  ft.  9  in.,  weight  150  pounds)  can  stand  this 
sweep  and  return  of  adrenalin  four,  five,  six  times  a  day 
without  damage  to  the  health.  Indeed,  unless  he  has 
some  excitement,  he  will  not  stay  well  and  strong  but  will 
become  stagnant  and  sluggish ;  he  goes  stale ;  he  dries 
up.  A  more  frequent  flow  of  the  juices  to  and  from 
these  ductless  glands  above  the  kidneys  makes  any  man 
thin  and  nervous  —  but  unless  too  frequent,  he  thereby 
develops  energy  and  appetite.  School  teaching  tends  to 
frequent  discharges  of  these  glands. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  charge  a  thin  man  with  (say)  a 
body  coefficient  of  1.9  with  adrenalin  and  a  very  different 
thing  to  charge  a  fat  man  with  a  body  coefficient  of  4.2. 
Case  6  got  on  fairly  well  for  some  years  as  a  class  teacher 
day  and  night ;  but  the  moment  he  added  politics  and  the 
second  moment  that  he  changed  to  school  executive  work, 
he  passed  his  limit.  Much  of  the  adrenalin  got  into  his 
brain  and  kept  him  awake  all  night.  It  raced  his  heart. 
It  scoured  his  kidneys. 

If  he  had  greatly  lightened  his  diet,  cutting  down  the 
meats  that  furnish  abundant  materials  for  adrenalin  and 
taking  cereal  protein  rather  than  animal,  he  might  per- 


FATAL  OVERWORK  83 

have  kept  his  health.     But  he  did  not  know  enough 
physiology  to  do  this. 

Case  6  was  not  an  ambitious  man ;  rather  he  was  con- 
scientious and  accommodating.  Circumstances  gave  to 
him  more  than  his  body  was  able  to  endure.  Its  very 
bigness  was  fatal  under  the  limitations  of  his  general 
ignorance  of  physiology  and  of  hygiene.  Living  in  a 
boarding  house  with  its  night  noises  was  a  handicap.  The 
time  spent  going  to  and  from  school, —  four  trips  on  four 
days  a  week  and  two  at  least  upon  two  other  days,  aver- 
aging a  half  hour  each, —  was  another  handicap.  Had  he 
remained  a  grammar  school  teacher  only,  doing  no  night 
work,  avoiding  all  school  politics,  he  would  probably 
have  lived  twenty  or  thirty  years  longer. 

Temperamental  instincts  and  environmental  ideas, —  a 
desire  to  please  and  oblige,  unwillingness  to  say  "  No!  " 
when  asked  to  do  more,  delight  in  being  a  leader, —  these 
largely  explain  this  breakdown.  These  vital  corpulent 
men  and  women,  these  soft,  pleasant,  kind  people,  do  not 
belong  in  teaching  for  their  own  good.  They  seldom  even 
enter  upon  teaching.  Indeed,  relatively  but  few  of  their 
number  ever  go  to  the  normal  school  or  college  or  even 
complete  high  school.  Contrary  to  the  general  opinion 
regarding  them,  they  often  overwork ;  and  they  are  char- 
acteristically short-lived  when  serving  as  teachers. 

An  important  factor  in  the  case  of  the  vital  corpulent, — 
such  as  Case  6, —  is  the  social  pressure  upon  them.  It 
is  a  common  sport  to  make  fun  of  fat  men  and  women, 
and  it  is  common  also  to  add  that  their  looks  show  that 
they  do  not  work  hard.  A  fat  man  dislikes  to  refuse 
extra  service  lest  he  be  charged  with  indolence  and  lazi- 
ness. It  is  true  that  much  flesh  is  a  burden  to  one  who 
does  not  work  with  one's  muscles.  It  is  hard  for  the  vital 
corpulent  to  work  at  all, —  much  harder  than  for  the  mus- 
cular, the  sinewy  or  the  ideo-motor.     Nevertheless,  the 


84    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

fact  that  the  intellectual  work  of  the  vital  corpulent  is 
usually  of  a  high  order  constitutes  an  offset  not  to  be 
lightly  regarded  by  the  wise. 

Case  6  died  prematurely  because  he  did  not  come  to 
self -understanding  in  time  to  save  himself  against  social 
pressures ;  and  when  he  died,  his  city  lost  a  man  whom 
it  has  not  yet  been  able  to  replace  at  all, —  genial,  buoy- 
ant, cheerful,  diligent,  enthusiastic,  efficient  and  socially 
impressive  and  influential. 


CHAPTER  IX 
ERRORS  OF  PARENTS  IN  CHILDHOOD  CARE 

CASE  7 

CASE  7  at  thirty-two  years  of  age  suddenly  devel- 
oped inability  to  eat  and  to  sleep.  This  came  on 
the  last  days  of  the  school  year;  and  she  went  away  to 
a  quiet  summer  resort.  At  thirty-five  years  of  age,  she 
disappeared  for  the  summer  months  in  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains,—  utterly  unable  to  get  on  with  people.  Frequently, 
during  the  school  year,  she  has  had  to  spend  Saturday 
and  Sunday  in  bed.  Case  7  often  has  what  she  calls 
"  hysterics," —  which  in  truth,  however,  are  poor  imita- 
tions of  the  medical  phenomenon  roughly  classified  as 
hysteria.  She  never  gets  "  besides  herself,"  is  never  lost 
to  common  sense.  She  has  had  several  minor  surgical 
operations,  such  as  the  removal  of  small  external  tumors 
or  cysts.  She  has  small  physical  but  perfect  moral  hardi- 
hood. Professionally,  she  holds  a  high  place  as  a  teacher 
and  earns  a  high  salary. 

Nevertheless,  Case  7  is  distinctly  a  pathological  case. 
She  may  live  to  a  very  old  age.  Often  for  months,  she 
is  very  well  and  feels  well.  Seldom  does  she  have  serious 
pains.  But  she  lives  in  a  constant  fear  of  that  "  gone 
feeling,"  when  she  must  go  to  bed  or  run  away  from 
present  realities. 

Physicians,  surgeons,  dentists  look  over  her  and  into 
her ;  and  find  nothing  definitely  the  matter.  Case  7  is  a 
very  hard  and  steady  worker.  The  heads  of  institutions 
employing  her  regard  her  as  a  jewel  above  price.  Sev- 
eral men  have  wished  to  marry  her.     Her  pupils  and  as- 

85 


86    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

sistant  teachers  do  not  "  obey  "  her ;  they  help  her  because 
they  like  her. 

Case  7  has  now  perfectly  rationalized  her  life,  her  con- 
duct, herself ;  but  she  cannot  rationalize  her  teaching  en- 
vironment, which  is  always  on  the  edge  of  being  too 
much  for  her  or  actually  sends  her  over  the  precipice  for 
a  day  or  a  fortnight  or  a  summer  or  a  full  year  of  being 
out  of  school,  which  has  occurred  twice. 


A    TEACHER   BY    HEREDITY    < 

She  is  the  product  of  inheritance  and  of  family  and 
school  environments.  Both  parents  were  working  teach- 
ers and  good  ones;  they  could  not  be  good  parents  and 
fine  teachers  at  the  same  time.  They  kept  a  house  but 
no  home.  At  sixteen  years  of  age,  Case  7  herself  went 
into  teaching.  In  consequence,  she  was  fated  to  be 
robbed  of  her  proper  growth  in  all  three  stages  of  adol- 
escence,—  primary  in  the  development  of  the  womb  and 
sex-organs  and  in  stature,  secondary  in  stature  and  width, 
and  tertiary  in  thickness,  weight  and  flesh.  She  is 
shorter  and  lighter  than  either  parent.  Most  of  her  life, 
her  body  coefficient  has  been  1.7,  a  serious  matter  to  one 
with  relatively  long  body  and  short  limbs.  Recently  at 
forty  years  of  age,  her  weight  due  to  special  care  has 
climbed  to  135  pounds,  which  is  thirty  pounds  more  than 
her  usual  condition.  She  reached  this  once  before  at 
twenty-five  years  of  age.  But  even  this  weight  is  forty 
pounds  under  that  characteristic  of  her  parents  and  grand- 
parents, all  of  whom  were  rather  large  always. 

We  like  to  deceive  ourselves  by  remarking  of  such 
persons  that  their  small  size  and  invalidism  are  the  result 
of  unaccountable  birth-inferiority ;  but  the  childhood  pic- 
tures show  no  such  inferiority.  The  lifelong  intellectual 
superiority  shows  that  Case  7  was  well-born.     She  has 


ERRORS  OF  PARENTS  87 

succeeded  in  getting  two  university  degrees  in  residence 
and  in  educating  at  her  own  cost  a  younger  brother  and 
has  helped  her  parents  financially  in  their  failing  old 
age. 

We  have  here  a  case  of  two  regrettable  features,  the 
altricious  and  imperfect  development  of  the  sex-organs 
and  glands  with  characteristically  irregular  and  deficient 
or  superabundant  menstruation  and,  second,  the  interest- 
ing phenomenon  that  Nature  steps  in  every  few  weeks 
lightly  and  every  few  years  heavily  and  enforces  extra 
rest  because  of  the  generally  characteristic  overwork.  Of 
course,  teachers  need  the  sabbatical  year.  Of  course,  no 
human  being  should  try  to  do  over  six  hours  of  intellec- 
tual work  every  day  or  over  forty  such  hours  a  week  us- 
ually. Of  course,  Case  7  often  works  at  school  duties 
twice  these  allowances.  She  says  that  she  cannot  help 
it ;  and  according  to  present  school  traditions,  this  is 
probably  true. 


TOO    MANY    SMALL    MEALS 

In  times  past,  however,  Case  7  indulged  herself  in  a 
good  many  false  notions  and  habits.  With  an  abnormally 
small  stomach,  she  had  nevertheless  permitted  the  forma- 
tion of  the  habit  of  eating  "  snacks  "  between  meals,  espe- 
cially four  o'clock  tea,  consisting  of  cookies  and  weak  tea. 
This  kept  her  alimentary  canal  in  a  perpetual  state  of  gas- 
eous ferment.  She  had  a  very  small  breakfast,  a  small 
lunch,  a  small  afternoon  snack  and  then  tried  to  eat  a  de- 
cent dinner  against  which  the  angry  little  stomach  often 
rebelled,  with  the  result  that,  being  hungry  at  ten  o'clock, 
she  had  a  small  meal  at  bed-time.  Also,  she  cared  more 
for  tastes  than  for  food-values  in  her  diet. 

A  one-quart  stomach  needs  a  one-quart  meal  as  much 
as  a  two-quart  stomach  needs  a  two-quart  meal.     With- 


88    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

out  a  comfortable  bolus  of  food,  the  stomach  fails  prop- 
erly in  its  vermicular  action,  which,  though  simply  me- 
chanical, is  a  distinct  help  to  digestion. 


INDIFFERENCE   TO   FUNCTIONS 

It  is  written  strongly  in  the  nature  of  all  normal  women 
to  have  a  four-day  menstrual  period,  following  the 
moon-month  of  28*4  days.  In  consequence,  menstrua- 
tion occurs  normally  (say)  on  Monday,  June  1 ;  then 
Monday,  June  29 ;  Monday,  July  27 ;  Monday,  August 
24 ;  but  Tuesday,  September  22,  instead  of  Monday,  Sep- 
tember 21.  Ordinarily,  the  second  or  third  day  of  the 
menstrual  flow  is  the  day  of  severest  nervous  instability 
and  weakness.  Every  physically  normal  woman  teacher 
ought  literally  to  lie  low  one  day  during  each  month ; 
that  is,  stay  quietly  at  home  and  rest.  But  the  school 
regimen  generally  does  not  permit  this,  though  in  a  few 
cities  and  in  a  few  institutions  women  teachers  are  granted 
at  their  option  one  day  off  a  month  with  full  pay.  Of 
course,  some  women  of  great  muscular  and  nervous 
strength  feel  no  need  of  such  a  day  of  quiet;  these  are 
of  the  political,  non-marriageable  type  who  advertise 
themselves  accordingly.  They  are  as  sexless,  as  unsym- 
pathetic and  as  unintelligent  as  some  men  in  teaching. 
Any  normal  woman  anywhere,  foreseeing  that  her  men- 
struation is  to  begin  on  Monday  or  Tuesday  should  take 
especial  pains  to  rest  on  the  preceding  Sunday.  Any 
normal  woman  whose  menstruation  did  begin  on  Wednes- 
day, Thursday  or  Friday  should  rest  thoroughly  on  the 
following  Saturday.  Unless  she  had  positive  pain,  as 
occurred  sometimes,  Case  7  paid  no  attention  to  the 
monthly  flow.  She  did  not  perceive  that  much  of  her 
ill-health  was  the  direct  consequence  of  this  ignorant 
carelessness. 


ERRORS  OF  PARENTS  89 

Why  do  not  physicians  tell  all  women  these  things? 
First,  because  few  women  listen  to  and  obey  their  physi- 
cians. Second,  because  maidens  generally  resent  any 
advice  upon  this  subject;  they  go  to  physicians  to  get 
cured,  not  to  prevent  the  need  of  being  cured.  Third, 
because  many  physicians  do  not  know  and  do  not  try  to 
understand  the  truth  about  school  programs  and  opera- 
tions. However,  nearly  everything  that  physicians  say 
about  schools  is  true;  probably  most  of  what  they  think 
is  also  true.  My  own  opinion  about  the  way  education 
is  run  in  America  is  that  the  physiological  ignoramus  rules 
supreme.  For  example,  I  regard  the  five-hour  high  school 
day  a  crime  against  youth  and  posterity.  Fourth,  physi- 
cians do  not  warn  women  teachers  about  their  menstrual 
requirements  because  they  imagine  that  the  mothers 
teach  all  that  is  necessary,  which  is  generally  not  so. 
Fifth,  physicians  are  healers,  not  hygienists,  pathologists 
rather  than  physiologists,  which  is  both  unnecessary  and 
unfortunate  but  not  unreasonable  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
custom  requires  them  to  live  by  fees  for  cures,  not  by 
salaries  for  keeping  men  and  women  well.  The  Chinese, 
who  do  some  things  weil  (else  their  civilization  would 
have  perished  long  ago),  pay  their  doctors  only  when  in 
good  health. 

The  third  notion  of  this  Case  has  been  that  she  should 
give  all  that  is  in  her  daily  to  her  work.  With  a  vivid 
and  large  imagination,  this  work  has  included  the  routine 
of  instruction  and  supervision,  the  charge  of  a  girls' 
sorority,  playing  in  the  amateur  theatricals  of  the  institu- 
tion, taking  an  active  part  in  the  Young  Women's  Chris- 
tian Association  and  helping  her  colleagues,  male  and  fe- 
male, in  the  preparation  of  books  and  papers.  She  has 
also  represented  her  institution  several  times  a  year  with 
one  or  more  addresses  at  teachers'  institutes. 

Inevitably,    one    asks    two    questions :  —  why    is    this 


po    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

woman  not  herself  a  school  or  college  executive?  Why 
has  she  never  married  ?  One  answer  serves :  —  She  has 
felt  inadequate, —  inadequate  even  to  her  present  duties, 
inadequate,  therefore,  to  social  control  and  inadequate 
to  being  a  successful  and  happy  wife  and  mother.  It  is 
said  that  she  has  "  instinctively  refused  marriage."  The 
contrary  is  true.  Instinctively,  she  has  hoped  to  marry; 
she  is  a  warm-hearted,  affectionate,  whole-souled,  sincere 
person.  But  she  has  realized  in  conduct,. though  perhaps 
not  self-consciously,  that  physically  she  could  not  marry 
with  success.  Her  upcoming  was  no  upbringing  to  a 
whole  normal  life.  If  at  sixteen  years  of  age,  when  she 
left  home  to  earn  her  own  living,  she  had  become  a  mus- 
cular worker  and  had  kept  good  hours  and  eaten  good 
food,  her  secondary  and  tertiary  adolescence  probably 
would  have  brought  her  almost  up  to  normal  physique;  in 
which  case  she  would  have  married  successfully.. 

Case  7,  therefore,  becomes  an  arraignment  of  two 
teacher-parents,  of  their  ideas  and  conduct,  and  of  the 
world  of  education  a  generation  ago.  Unhappily,  there 
are  some  "  Case  7's  "  that  are  being  caused  in  these  years 
of  the  twentieth  century. 

Case  7  is  not  wholly  cured  of  her  false  notions.  She 
still  sits  and  knits  when  she  "  has  nothing  else  to  do  " ; 
or  runs  over  to  nurse  another  woman's  baby  for  an  even- 
ing when  she  "  has  nothing  else  to  do  " ;  or  writes  letters 
to  her  thousand  friends  and  former  pupils  when  she 
-*  has  nothing  else  to  do."  Perhaps  Case  7  will  never 
learn  to  sit  and  do  nothing  at  all, —  except  store  surplus 
nervous  energy.  Case  7  is  an  invaluable  friend  to  every- 
one else  than  herself ;  she  is  one  of  the  women  workhorses 
of  the  higher  culture. 

Case  7  has  all  the  artistry  and  high-skipping  of  her 
Norman  French  blood  and  some  of  the  social  tact  of  her 
Highland  Scotch  blood.     She  has  just  enough  of  the  pure 


ERRORS  OF  PARENTS  91 

Angle  to  be  persistent  and  inconsiderate  of  herself.  Per- 
haps the  excessive  range  and  variety  of  her  interests  may 
be  traced  in  part  to  this  wide  range  of  hereditary  traits. 
What  a  success  she  might  have  made  as  a  professional 
actress  the  world  will  never  know. 

Some  persons  collapse  especially  when  they  have  some- 
thing just  ahead  to  do  that  is  disagreeable ;  it  is  like  "  play- 
ing 'possum  "  to  avoid  duty.  Most  of  these  cases  are 
physically  pathological  and  should  not  be  taken  as  delib- 
erate faking.  But  other  persons  collapse  when  on  the 
threshold  of  some  great  pleasure  or  merry-making  or  of 
some  long-desired  opportunity.  It  is  a  collapse  like  the 
bursting  of  a  soap-bubble.  Such  persons  are  made  in- 
tensely miserable  for  awhile  as  though  the  gates  of  Para- 
dise were  shut  in  their  faces.  They  are  like  business 
men  trying  to  handle  million  dollar  enterprises  on  ten 
thousand  dollar  working  capital  funds.  The  slackers  who 
soldier  on  their  jobs  and  finally  flunk  should  not  be  con- 
fused with  the  valiant  weak  who  undertake  beyond  their 
powers  to  perform.  It  is  to  the  latter  order  of  woman- 
kind that  Case  7,  by  reason  of  heredity  and  of  early 
rearing  belongs  to  her  own  chagrin.  American  schools 
and  colleges  have  many  such  good  women. 


CHAPTER  X 
DEFICIENT  PHYSIQUE  FOR  TEACHING 

CASE  8 

THE  history  of  Case  8  as  a  teacher  so  far  is  very 
brief.  She  was  graduated  from  college  at  twenty- 
two  years  of  age  and  immediately  entered  upon  high 
school  teaching.  In  four  months,  she  came  home  a  physi- 
cal and  mental  wreck ;  and  after  some  years  shows  no  con- 
siderable recovery.  Fortunately,  she  has  a  father  and  a 
home.  She  went  into  teaching  for  the  sake  of  the  experi- 
ence and  mental  enlargement.  Baffled,  broken  and  cha- 
grined, she  is  unlikely  to  try  again. 

Every  year,  there  are  thousands  on  thousands  of  teach- 
ers whose  brief  term  of  teaching  has  broken  their  health 
and  who  drop  out  hating  the  occupation  and  yet  dis- 
gusted with  themselves  for  their  physical  inability  to 
cope  with  its  conditions.  Case  8  is  a  striking  illustration 
and  a  loud  warning  against  experiments  of  this  char- 
acter. Before  she  began  to  teach,  those  who  knew  and 
understood  her  physique  advised  her  not  to  undertake  the 
work. 

She  came  of  intellectually  brilliant  families, —  states- 
men, preachers,  architects,  social  leaders  for  many  gen- 
erations. There  are,  however,  two  traits  in  the  heredity 
that  have  been  injurious  to  this  scion, —  social  ambition 
and  love  of  money.  A  high  school  position  seemed  to 
offer  both  social  prestige  and  an  addition  of  cash  income 
to  her  family, —  which  in  truth  needed  neither. 

Case  8  was  five  feet,  five  inches  in  height  and  weighed 
at  graduation  125  pounds.     She  is  a  brunette.     Her  pulse 

92 


DEFICIENT  PHYSIQUE  93 

was  low,  slow,  weak,  irregular,  very  hard  to  get  at  all 
when  she  was  excited  or  frightened.  (55  to  90,  with  a 
tendency  to  58  or  60.)  Her  voice  was  so  low  that  she 
could  scarcely  be  heard  even  by  those  near  her  whom 
she  was  addressing.  She  avoided  society,  never  went 
out  with  young  men,  but  tried  hard  to  get  high  marks  in 
her  studies.  She  preferred  as  companions  women  many 
years  older  or  boys  and  girls  much  younger  than  herself. 
(This  is  a  trait  of  morons  and  hypermorons,  but  Case  8  is 
intellectually  superior  and  in  no  proper  sense  a  moron.) 

She  is  mainly  English  with  some  traces  of  Belgian 
blood.  Delicately  bred,  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  in- 
tellectual discussion,  surrounded  by  family  friends  and 
supported  by  their  affection,  she  suffers  from  pity  where 
she  desires  admiration.  And  while  she  suffers,  she  hates 
the  rural  school  principal,  the  rural  school  board  and  the 
rural  community  where  she  was  defeated  and  humiliated. 


AN    ENVIRONMENT   OF    IGNORANCE 

Case  8  ran  into  this  school  condition, —  forty  high 
school  pupils,  one  hundred  fifty  elementary  school  pupils, 
six  elementary  school  teachers,  her  principal,  who  was 
supposed  to  help  her  teach  the  high  school  courses  but 
did  not,  and  no  colleague, —  with  a  four  year  high  school 
program  to  put  through  every  day.  Her  principal  was 
no  older  than  herself  and  had  never  been  to  college.  He 
spent  his  day  disciplining  pupils  and  visiting  classes.  She 
tried  to  teach  the  entire  high  school  currieulum, —  four 
subjects  a  year,  four  years,  that  is,  sixteen  different  sub- 
jects each  week,  and  an  average  of  twelve  each  day.  Her 
living  room  was  in  a  farmhouse  taken  over  by  the  village 
preacher  and  had  no  heat  whatever.  She  ate  at  the  vil- 
lage hotel, —  an  affair  connected  with  the  crossroads  gen- 
eral store. 


94    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Against  all  these  conditions,  Case  8  felt  a  moral  revul- 
sion. She  knew  that  the  high  school  required  first  of  all  a 
well-educated  veteran  principal,  who  could  and  would 
show  her  how  to  teach  and  up  to  whom  the  boys  and  girls 
would  look  in  admiration.  Next,  she  knew  that  to  carry 
on  the  program  honestly  required  the  services  of  not  less 
than  two  other  full-time  teachers.  Even  so,  each  teacher 
would  have  five  different  subjects  to  prepare  weekly. 
There  is  no  such  person  as  one  competent  to  teach  physics, 
French,  algebra,  history,  English  rhetoric  and  literature, 
bookkeeping  and  yet  other  subjects  daily.  She  knew  this 
and  resented  what  she  styled  "  being  a  fake."  As  a  young 
woman,  she  resented  the  disposition  of  the  preacher  fam- 
ily of  farmer  stock  toward  herself  for  teaching;  they 
considered  her  as  no  better  than  a  farmhand  and  assumed 
that  she  taught  because  she  was  poor  and  needed  the 
money  and  knew  no  other  way  to  get  it.  The  social  pres- 
tige of  her  father  and  family  was  meaningless  to  them ; 
that  human  civilization  depends  not  so  much  upon  food 
as  upon  the  circulation  of  wise  thoughts,  they  did  not 
comprehend. 

Her  voice  was  so  weak,  her  manners  were  so  gentle, 
her  soul  was  so  pure,  innocent  and  remote  from  the 
world,  this  rural  world,  that  she  herself  was  inconsequen- 
tial. She  had  no  way  to  enforce  her  instruction  upon 
the  minds  of  parents  or  pupils. 

While  she  was  getting  sick  from  cold  and  from  criti- 
cism, the  village  school  board  voted  to  ask  her  to  resign 
and  quit, —  which  she  promptly  did,  went  home,  and  took 
to  her  bed. 

All  of  which  seems  to  have  but  little  to  do  with  physiol- 
ogy. But  why  was  her  voice  weak?  There  is  a  strain 
of  thyroid  gland  deficiency  in  her  breed.  Some  of  her 
kin  die  of  exophthalmic  goitre.  Her  own  thyroid  devel- 
opment is  poor.     Her  growth  never  came  right.     She 


DEFICIENT  PHYSIQUE  95 

has  very  small  narrow  shoulders  and  a  weak  mouth.  Her 
movements  are  very  slow.  She  had  medical  treatment 
of  a  modern  character  prior  to  this  calamity  and  has  had 
more  since  with  good  results. 

The  great  change  in  her  regimen  has  been  to  get  out- 
doors in  the  family  motor  car  and  in  walking.  Indoors, 
housework  has  been  prescribed  with  benefit. 

Case  8  suggests  three  hygienic  propositions. 

First,  physicians  should  seek  to  correct  in  children  the 
procedures  of  errant  thyroid  glands.  This  is  a  newly 
discovered  duty  of  parents,  teachers  and  physicians. 

Second,  persons  like  Case  8  should  not  try  to  teach 
anywhere.  She  would  not  have  been  admitted  into  a 
well-managed  city  school  system  as  a  teacher  under  or- 
dinary peace  conditions. 

Third,  but  if  and  when  such  persons  do  teach,  they 
should  insist  upon  having  competent  school  principals 
over  them ;  insist  and  if  and  when  refused,  they  should 
decline  to  teach  forthwith  in  order  to  save  their  own 
health  and  reputation.  The  moral  indignation  of  Case  8 
should  have  boiled  over, —  which  boiling  over  would  have 
saved  her  from  being  publicly  branded  as  a  failure,  and 
the  school  itself  from  being  ruined  as  it  was  by  an  in- 
competent youth,  and  education  from  being  held  in  local 
contempt  for  the  whole  affair. 

Bad  as  was  the  educational  situation  in  that  village,  in 
many  other  schools  it  is  still  worse ;  and  it  will  never  be 
better  until  young  women  teachers  are  thoroughly  in- 
doctrinated in  and  habituated  to  the  belief  that  their  first 
duty  as  teachers  is  not  to  be  silent  because  silence  is 
u  ladylike  "  but  to  be  frank  and  truthful  and  yet  ladylike. 
Young  women  will  remain  publicly  silent  until  they  learn 
to  take  walks  outdoors  or  to  play  tennis,  and  to  keep  their 
blood  well  oxygenated,  no  matter  whether  their  thyroid 
glands  are  good  or  not.     We  must  also  have  complaints 


96    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

publicly  registered  in  protest  against  communities  where 
teachers  are  neglected  as  to  their  home  needs  out  of 
school. 

Case  8,  then,  is  eloquent  of  the  necessity  to  select  oc- 
cupation according  to  physique  and  also  of  the  neces- 
sity to  instruct  many  communities  how  to  appreciate  the 
teachers  who  come  to  serve  them  loyally.  The  young 
woman  who  followed  this  failure  had  less  intelligence 
and  inferior  culture  and  made  a  worse,  though  a  differ- 
ent, failure.  And  the  young  man  had  to  find  another 
high  school  as  principal  to  victimize  the  next  year.  These 
results,  however,  have  not  helped  Case  8  to  recover 
physically  from  the  moral  shock  that  she  has  suffered. 


CHAPTER  XI 
INSUFFICIENCY  OF  MIND  FOR  TEACHING 

CASE  9 

**1\4'AN  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  every 
!▼  A  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God," 
—  i.  e.  by  truth.  There  are  persons  made  ill,  very  ill,  by 
nothing  physical  but  by  false  notions  socially  enforced. 
No  change  in  diet  could  possibly  help  them.  They  do 
not  need  more  sleep;  more  exercise;  more  baths,  better 
dental  care  ;  or  anything  else  for  their  bodies.  They  need 
a  new  set  of  notions  and  habits.     Case  9  is  in  point. 

He  was  plain  Angle  by  ancestry  with  all  the  traits  of 
his  race.  He  had  attained  the  highest  educational  stand- 
ing possible  to  an  American  scholar  and  held  an  im- 
portant post  that  included  some  teaching.  And  he  had 
reached  the  age  of  forty,  with  a  wife  at  once  handsome, 
well-educated  and  very  fond  of  him.  They  owned  a 
home  and  much  other  property ;  but  he  went  .insane,  as 
the  Angle  under  social  pressure  is  aberrant  enough  by 
heredity  to  do  all  too  easily. 

Case  9  held  intently  to  his  own  ideals.  He  proposed  to 
make  the  world  conform  to  his  own  high  and  generally 
correct  standards.  His  was  a  mind  of  habits,  very  good 
ones;  but  not  a  flexible  mind  quick  to  adjust  itself  to 
changing  situations,  not  a  mind  that  flowed  around  and 
engulfed  obstacles,  but  a  mind  that  struck  the  rocks  in  the 
current  of  life.  He  could  not  ooze  around  a  difficulty; 
or  undermine  it ;  or  jump  over  it  joyously ;  he  had  to 
knock  it  out.     In  consequence,  Case  9  made  the  most  loyal 

97 


98    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

friends  and  just  as  aggressive  opponents;  he  split  his 
world  into  two  parties,  for  and  against,  with  none  indif- 
ferent, no  soft,  easy,  restful  neutrals.  Unhappily  for 
himself,  his  position  was  not  important  enough  for  his 
opponents  to  become  life-and-death  enemies,  aiming  to 
get  him  out.  Instead,  they  preferred  to  badger  and  bear- 
bait  him.  (Both  badgers  and  bears  enjoy  quarrels  so 
much  that  they  grow  fat  in  the  game  of  life.  Bears  as 
well- as  men  engage  in  bearbaiting.) 

Case  9  believed  in  system  and  in  records.  He  could  and 
did  make  public  speeches  in  faculty  meetings  an  hour, 
even  two  hours  long,  defending  and  explaining  his  rec- 
ords and  methods.  The  least  opposition  brought  from 
him  long  streams  of  talk.  Yet  he  was  by  no  means  gar- 
rulous by  nature ;  his  talk  was  conscientiously  done  as 
from  necessity.  Six  months  before  he  went  insane, 
medical  men  and  psychiatrists  began  to  notice  and  to  men- 
tion to  one  another  the  aberrant  tendencies  and  develop- 
ments. In  one  instance,  he  heard  a  false  rumor  affect- 
ing a  man  whom  he  disliked.  Notwithstanding  repeated 
corrections  of  this  rumor,  he  repeated  it  daily  and  could 
not  correct  his  own  memory  regarding  it. 


BROODING 

Consider  a  good  machine  with  many  axles  and  gear 
wheels,  receiving  power  over  a  pulley  from  a  belt.  Shift 
the  belt  to  the  power  wheel  and  the  machine  goes  to  work 
quietly,  tremendously.  But  of  a  sudden  a  gear  wheel 
strips  its  gears  and  the  wheel  begins  to  race  because  it 
can  no  longer  convey  power  and  do  work.  Case  9  had 
wheels  in  his  head  and  great  driving  power  but  the  judg- 
ment gear  wheel  stripped  its  gears  and  went  on  a  mad 
race.  Physicians,  friends,  higher  authorities  advised 
Case  9  to  quit  his  work  and  go  to  a  sanitarium.     His 


INSUFFICIENCY  OF  MIND  99 

wife  pleaded  with  him.  He  was  relieved  of  part  of  his 
duties,  notwithstanding  his  own  protest.  This  move  of 
his  real  friends  created  dire  suspicion  in  his  mind.  One 
night  he  went  raving  mad.  A  few  weeks  later  he  had 
quieted,  and  frequently  walked  about  the  streets,  with  face 
marked  with  court-plaster  where  he  had  torn  his  cheeks 
with  his  fingernails.  His  usual  errand  was  to  take  flow- 
ers to  his  friends.  After  a  year  of  devolution  of  mind,  he 
died  in  a  private  asylum. 

This  was  no  case  of  neurasthenia ;  nor  of  paresis ;  nor 
of  paranoia;  nor  of  split  personality;  nor  of  melancholia. 
It  was  simple  dementia, —  loss  of  mind  from  fret  and 
misunderstanding  and  brooding. 

The  man  who  cannot  get  his  mind  off  of  one  subject, 
—  whose  mind  does  not  play, —  will  soon  have  no  mind  at 
all.  He  may  become  a  fool ;  he  may  become  a  maniac ; 
he  cannot  remain  a  normal  man. 

Case  9  needed  two  changes  in  his  daily  regimen, —  first 
play ;  second,  amusement.  He  took  life  too  seriously,  too 
strenuously. 

A  human  brain  contains  virtually  for  practical  purposes 
an  infinite  number  of  cells  that  break  down  rapidly  but 
have  the  marvellous,  the  miraculous  power  of  teaching 
their  successors  all  that  they  know.  The  entire  brain  is 
new  every  few  weeks.  The  used  parts  of  it  are  new  per- 
haps every  day.  Nor  does  the  brain  get  tired  of  wearing 
away  at  the  same  points  daily  perpetually;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  has  a  distinct  inclination  to  do  this  thing.  In 
addition,  when  a  part  (a  nerve  nucleus)  is  used  much, 
there  is  a  distinct  inclination  not  to  spread  over  to  sur- 
rounding parts.  This  amounts  to  cutting  deep  ruts  in 
the  brain.  A  pretty  illustration  of  this  is  that  a  person 
who  both  plays  the  piano  and  works  a  typewriter  finds 
that  the  two  sets  of  finger  habits  conflict  with  one  another, 
vpes  all  day  and  then  tends  to  type  on  the  piano;  or 


ioo   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

he  plays  the  piano  all  evening  and  the  next  morning  finds 
himself  playing  with  a  piano  action,  upon  the  typewriter. 
In  consequence  of  this,  a  brain  needs  widely-irrigating  ex- 
ercises that  will  relieve  overworked  areas  and  draw  othi 
ers  into  use.     Such  exercises  are  plays. 

The  plays  for  adults  are  many,  golf,  horse-back  riding, 
tennis,  swimming,  skating,  hockey,  baseball,  games  witH 
one's  own  children. 

Every  adult  should  play  every  day  at  something  or 
other.     The  ecstasy  of  play  is  a  safety-valve. 

Case  9  knew  this  but  allowed  professional  duties  to 
crowd  all  play  out  of  his  life. 

An  inferior  substitute  for  play  is  amusement,  which 
takes  more  forms  even  than  play.  There  are  concerts, 
operas,  movies,  chess,  supper  parties  and  other  relaxa- 
tions. 

Case  9  had  no  amusements.  Occasionally,  Ke  took  his 
boy  out  for  a  walk  in  the  woods  and  taught  him  botany. 
Even  at  receptions  and  formal  parties,  he  talked  shop. 
He  imagined  that  his  religion  required  him  to  be  serious 
all  the  time.  To  him,  talk  about  education  was  all  that- 
he  knew  of  seriousness.  He  thought  even  of  religion  and 
of  philosophy  as'  means  to  the  educational  end.  Even 
what  science  he  knew  was  so  bookish  that  he  never  set 
up  a  carpenter  shop  in  his  basement  or  an  electrical  labor- 
atory in  his  attic.  He  lived  in  abstraction  designed  to 
effect  social  control  through  the  school. 

He  considered  it  wicked  to  read  a  modern  novel.  He 
objected  to  "wasting"  time.  He  believed  not  in  the 
short-hour,  high  pressure  work  day  but  in  the  all-hours, 
high  pressure  work  days.  He  made  realities  of  unreali- 
ties and  lived  in  ideas  and  emotions  and  in  moral  battles. 

His  wife  felt  but  could  not  counteract  his  drive  toward 
mental  ruin  through  ever  narrowing  interests  in  his  daily 
life. 


INSUFFICIKV   >    <    I    M::^i)  101 

If,  however,  his  colleagues  and  friends  had  foreseen 
what  might  happen  and  if  all  together  they  had  in  a 
kindly  way  conspired  to  make  him  play  and  to  learn  how 
o  be  amused  and  to  enjoy  both  play  and  amusement, — 
most  of  them  play  and  are  amused  at  life, —  if  they  had 
understood  the  inner  workings  of  his  mind,  they  could 
lave  turned  him  aside  from  this  fate. 

Always  some  men  and  women  in  teaching  are  going  on 
ihis  downward  road.  It  is  the  down  grade  that  draws 
also  many  a  farmer's  wife.  But  in  more  than  half  the 
cases,  something  happens  to  save  the  victim.  An  in- 
stance in  point  was  that  of  an  educator  whose  unexpected 
bankruptcy  from  outside  interests  ruined  his  reputation 
and  -took  him  out  of  education, —  only  to  make  him  a 
house-contractor,  rich  and  happy.  Like  Case  9,  he  was 
"  going  daft "  over  a  few  pet  educational  notions.  A 
house-contractor  with  but  three  ideas  in  his  repertoire 
will  soon  cease  to  function.  One  idea  sometimes  makes 
an  educator  famous.  Common  sense  men  of  the  world 
look  upon  such  educators  as  mentally  unsound,  "  half- 
cracked,"  "  half-baked." 


THE    NECESSITY   TO   PLAY 

This  man  used  to  say  when  it  was  suggested  that  he 
join  the  country  club  and  play  golf  and  whist,  that  this 
would  lower  his  professional  standing,  that  he  often 
heard  persons  passing  by  the  golf  links  comment  upon  the 
leisure  of  the  golfers  unfavorably.  But  the  truth  is  that 
the  men  and  women  who  really  control  American  affairs 
in  a  large  way  think  favorably  of  such  persons  as  can  get 
their  work  done  and  have  leisure  for  physical  renewal. 

The  personal  hygiene  of  that  teacher  is  not  complete 
who  never  thinks  of  play  and  relaxation,  and  never 
shares  in  the  fun  of  being  alive — "Consider  the  lilies  of 


io2        THE;  HEALTH  £)g  THE  TEACHER 

the  field,  how  they  grow.  They  toil  not  neither  do  they 
spin.  Yet  even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed 
like  one  of  these." 

A  fishing-pole  of  a  Saturday  at  forty  can  save  a  man 
from  the  asylum  at  fifty  years  of  age. 

Raise  calves  and  colts. 

Indulge  in  railroad  tickets,  the  best  of  geographies. 

Take  two  friends  to  a  restaurant  for  dinner. 

Read  Kipling  or  O.  Henry  or  Dickens. 

Do  anything  except  grind  all  day  every  day  from  year's 
end  to  year's  end  lest  life  or  mind  end  sadly  and  suddenly. 

Sunrise  to  sunset  six  days  a  week  are  the  extreme 
limits  of  work  for  any  sane  man. 

Even  write  verse  though  no  one  else  ever  reads  it. 
Do  something,  anything  greatly  different  from  the  set 
tasks. 

Have  a  vocation,  an  avocation  and  at  least  one  hobby. 
Be  several  different  persons  within  the  law. 

One  woman  going  the  dreadful  route  of  Case  9  was 
switched  off  by  being  transferred  to  another  school  and 
required  to  move  into  another  boarding-house  half  a  mile 
from  her  place  of  teaching.  She  fought  the  proposition ; 
but  being  given  the  alternative, —  discharge, —  accepted. 
Three  months  afterwards  she  was  a  new  and  happier 
woman. 

Man  is  born  a  nomad.  He  was  not  born  to  occupy  an 
underground  cave  all  his  life.  He  was  born  to  rejoice  in 
sea  and  sky  and  change.  The  normal  mood  is  that  of 
Marcus  Aurelius, — "  My  life  is  the  sojourn  of  a 
stranger."  The  passion  to  found  an  ancestral  estate  in 
order  that  one's  great  grandchildren  may  die  in  the  same 
bed  as  oneself  is  highly  mediaeval  and  artificial  and  dis- 
tinctly a  transient  phase  of  human  ambition.  The  nat- 
ural man  prefers  with  Plutarch  to  "  voyage  among  many 
cities." 


iNSUFFICJENi  V  OF  MIND  103 

Any  education  that  binds  a  man  to  a  particular  trend  oi 
thought  and  action  is  no  education  at  all  but  an  impris- 
onment of  the  spirit.  In  the  reformed  education  of  the 
period  when  we  shall  of  necessity  reconstruct  education 
by  democratizing  it  to  meet  the  new  needs  of  social  life, 
we  may  forestall  in  very  many  cases  all  these  tendencies 
to  insanity  from  false  ideation  by  placing  in  the  school 
programs,  along  with  very  much  greater  amounts  of 
science,  history,  literature,  and  the  fine  arts,  enough 
biography  to  establish  in  all  intellectual  persons  the  con- 
viction that  successful  men  and  women  live  varied  days 
and  engage  in  play  and  are  glad  that  the  whole  burden  of 
the  universe  is  not  one  man's  to  carry.  The  man  here 
took  himself  too  seriously,  and  the  world  also.  He 
might  have  learned  much  of  value  by  discovering  the 
real  lives  of  the  great,  from  Washington  and  Lincoln  in 
America,  to  Homer  the  musician  and  Shakespeare  the 
player  in  Europe.  In  truth,  training  is  only  small  part 
of  education, —  necessary  but  far  from  all  of  it.  The 
free  spirit  that  plays  and  enjoys  is  far  more  powerful  in 
developing  a  good  man  than  discipline  such  as  this  man 
enforced  upon  himself. 


CHAPTER  XII 
BURNING  THE  CANDLE  TOO  FAST 

CASE    IO 

AT  thirty-five  years  of  age,  Case  10  had  an  open 
world  before  him.  He  was  handsome,  healthy, 
brilliant  and  popular.  He  had  a  beautiful  wife  and  one 
boy.  Of  American  birth,  he  was  a  true  Anglo-Saxon,  as 
much  impulsive  Angle  as  amiable  Saxon.  Already,  as 
an  educator,  he  had  a  good  salary  and  ranked  as  the  sec- 
ond man  in  the  service  of  his  city. 

His  Saxon  traits  of  congeniality  and  cheerfulness 
proved  his  undoing.  He  had,  however,  a  sound  consti- 
tution and  bore  up  for  a  long,  long  time. 

He  was  blond,  blue-eyed,  five  feet  ten  inches  in  height, 
and  weighed  175  pounds.  He  had  enough  of  the  Angle 
in  him  to  be  alert  and  athletic.  His  boys  at  school  as 
well  as  his  colleagues  liked  him.  He  was  the  beau  ideal 
of  the  young  women  school  teachers  of  the  city.  He 
dressed  with  taste  and  care. 

His  physical  regimen  included  bathing,  tooth-brushing, 
gymnastics  and  almost  every  hygienic  requirement, —  al- 
most every  one. 

Case  10  began  by  drinking  fine  tasting  alcoholic  stimu- 
lants and  smoking  good  cigars  after  school  hours  like  a 
gentleman  at  his  club,  not  with  other  educators  but  with 
politicians,  journalists,  business  men  and  men  about  town. 
At  this  phase  of  his  career,  he  began  to  show  an  irregular 
pulse  and  high  color  in  his  cheeks. 

Then  came  a  great  political  disappointment.     He  was 

104 


BURNING  THE  CANDLE  TOO  FAST       105 

defeated  by  an  outside  candidate  for  the  city  school  super- 
intendency.  The  very  school  board  members  who  had 
sat  in  the  club  with  him  smoking  and  drinking  were 
afraid  to  put  him  before  the  city  as  the  foremost  educator. 

The  next  phase  saw  Case  10  smoking  cigarettes  on  the 
way  to  school,  taking  brandy  and  whiskey  in  small  sips 
during  school  hours,  visiting  cafes  after  school  and  play- 
ing cards  for  money  and  doing  worse  until  the  early  morn- 
ing hours  with  young  bloods  of  various  social  grades. 
He  seldom  got  over  six  hours  abed  at  night. 

His  wife,  believing  him  unfaithful,  went  home  to  her 
parents ;  but  he  kept  his  house  open  after  a  fashion.  His 
gambling  netted  him  money  on  the  average,  and  he  lived 
high.     He  became  very  influential  in  ward  politics. 

Then  came  a  second  disappointment.  With  the  sup- 
port of  every  newspaper,  he  deadlocked  against  an  ex- 
tremely serious  local  candidate  for  the  city  superinten- 
dency,  and  again  he  lost. 

At  this  stage,  Case  10  breathed  with  difficulty.  His 
skin  was  white  as  a  sheet.  There  were  great  blue  pockets 
under  his  eyes.  His  heart  was  pumping  hard.  Indiges- 
tion kept  him  from  eating  good  meals;  but  he  took  to 
crackers  and  milk  as  his  main  reliance,  which  was  intelli- 
gent. 

At  this  stage,  Case  10  looked  incandescent  like  a  human 
gas  mantle. 

The  third  period  saw  him  much  reduced  in  weight,  ex- 
cessively brilliant  in  conversation  and  erratic  in  judg- 
ment, and  frequently  napping  in  his  office  during  school 
hours.  His  wife  returned  to  him  for  the  sake  of  their 
boy  and  of  the  family  name.  She  appeared  like  an  old 
and  haggard  woman.  He  ceased  to  stay  out  late  at  night ; 
but  began  to  cough  and  to  have  night  sweats.  He  was 
still  the  second  man  in  the  city  school  service. 

Then  came  the  third  disappointment.     Again,  the  city 


io6   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

superintendency  was  vacant.  Again  Case  10  was  a  can- 
didate. But  now  he  had  not  one  supporter.  It  was  to 
him  a  hideous  disillusionment.  He  never  claimed  to 
have  reformed;  in  truth,  he  frequently  got  drunk  after 
school.  But  he  did  believe  that  as  the  leader  of  all  the 
men  of  the  teaching  force,  the  ablest  executive,  the  most 
fluent  public  speaker,  the  political  head  of  his  ward,  he 
would  get  at  least  one  vote.  On  the  contrary,  a  local 
man  of  quiet  nature,  barely  thirty  years  old,  defeated 
him  unanimously. 

Case  10  had  misunderstood  the  social  forces. 

A  year  later,  he  was  given  leave  of  absence.  The 
clinic  examination  indicated  that  one  lung  and  one  kidney 
were  out  of  commission.  That  winter  at  the  first  snow- 
fall, he  died  in  his  first  hemorrhage  of  the  lungs. 

There  are  two  flatterers  peculiarly  gifted  in  seducing 
some  brilliant  professional  men  who  do  not  take  much 
muscular  exercise  out  of  doors,  alcohol  and  tobacco. 
Neither  one  alone  is  very  dangerous  to  men  of  muscular 
motor  temperament  who  live  out  of  doors.  Both  together 
have  deceived,  seduced  and  destroyed  many  a  Case  10. 

Under  their  influence,  Case  10  became  untruthful  even 
to  himself.  He  lost  the  power  to  .remember  conversa- 
tions, to  count  correctly  the  number  of  children  in  a  class, 
and  to  tell  right  from  wrong.  Naturally  without  a  trace 
of  malice,  he  became  hateful  to  a  loving  wife  because  she 
could  not  trust  him. 

He  never  meant  to  reform  or  even  to  improve  his  pub- 
lic conduct.  A  nauseated  stomach  and  a  rebellious  ner- 
vous system  compelled  him  to  cut  down  his  offences ;  but 
he  was  never  repentant. 

In  most  cities,  Case  10  would  have  been  discharged,  but 
the  frequent  changes  in  the  city  superintendency  and  his 
own  hobnobbing  with  just  as  frequently  changing  board 
members  prevented  this. 


BURNING  THE  CANDLE  TOO  FAST       107 

The  moralists  of  the  city  who  knew  the  facts, —  mostly 
the  older  women  teachers, —  charged  the  ruin  of  Case  10 
to  one  or  more  of  three  causes, —  I.  the  clubs  and  club- 
life.     2.  alcohol  and  tobacco.     3.  a  too  lenient  wife. 

Case  10,  like  most  Anglo-Saxons,  had  a  poor  instinct  of 
self-preservation.  He  longed  to  be  known  as  "  a  good 
fellow."  He  could  not  resist  the  invitation  to  "  have  an- 
other." Case  10  was  known  to  drink  a  dozen  cocktails 
and  as  many  whiskies  and  brandies  at  a  single  night  ses- 
sion. He  drank  enormous  amounts  of  seltzer,  so  enor- 
mous that  his  skin  was  bleached  and  his  kidneys  bloated 
by  excessive  water. 


WHAT    MIGHT    II AVE    BEEN 

If  the  world  war  had  occurred  in  the  period  when  Case 
10  was  going  from  25  to  30  years  of  age,  he  would  have 
become  a  first  lieutenant ;  or  when  he  was  going  from  30 
to  35,  a  captain  at  the  least.  On  the  firing-line,  he  would 
have  been  a  hero.  As  an  educator,  he  undertook  more 
than  one  heroic  enterprise.  He  fought  through  the  state 
legislature  one  of  the  first  bills  for  teachers'  pensions  ever 
pissed  in  any  of  our  States,  perhaps  the  very  first.  Hun- 
dreds of  the  leading  statesmen  and  politicians  in  Great 
l.ritain  and  America  have  had  just  his  virtues  and  his 
failings, —  and  not  a  few  preachers  and  literary  men. 
I  lis  profession  caused  him  to  be  judged  by  unusually  high 
standards. 

That  Case  10  should  die  in  the  early  forties  from  hy- 
gienic mistakes  shows  the  need  of  more  hygienic  knowl- 
edge among  teachers.  Prohibition  is  putting  an  end  to 
alcoholic  stimulants.  For  a  man  like  Case  10  to  work 
hard  professionally  from  8  A.  m.  to  4  P.  m.  and  then  to 
smoke  cigars  from  4  p.  m.  to  6:30  will  almost  insure  his 
having  no  appetite  for  a  good  dinner. 


108   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

One  who  has  observed  the  health-history  of  very  many 
men  and  women,  who  has  looked  on  birth  and  death  and 
visited  many  of  the  sick,  is  not  likely  to  list  tobacco  as 
either  a  therapeutic  aid  or  a  destructive  poison  as  such. 
All  the  same,  three  cigars  a  day,  one  after  each  meal,  or 
one  after  the  noon  meal  and  two  in  the  evening  will  do 
far  less  harm  than  three  cigars  from  4  to  6  p.  m.  Case 
10  had  a  lit  cigar,  cigarette  or  pipe  at  hand  for  the  three 
years  when  his  internal  organs  were  going  to  ruin  on  the 
average  twelve  hours  a  day  and  spent  on  the  average  three 
dollars  a  week  on  tobacco  for  himself.  Being  popular 
and  associating  with  freer  spenders  than  himself,  he  re- 
ceived more  cigars  as  gifts  than  he  gave  away  in  treating. 

Too  little  sleep ;  irregular  hours ;  alcohol ;  tobacco ;  neg- 
lected and  excessive  eating ;  no  care  at  home ;  heavy  pro- 
fessional work, —  these  destroyed  Case  10.  He  was  a 
breaker  of  physical  laws.  The  tuberculosis  germ  is  ever 
ready  to  seize  upon  such  persons. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
EXCESSIVE  ANXIETY  ABOUT  HEALTH 

CASE    II 

CASE  ii  was  a  philosopher  who  died  at  forty-five 
years  of  age.  He  was  a  Black  Kelt  by  breed, —  of 
the  type  so  often  seen  in  the  priesthood.  He  was  a  fault- 
less man  in  character  and  conduct, —  with  a  merry  wit 
and  a  glad  smile.  All  the  intelligent  who  knew  him  both 
loved  and  admired  him.  They  talked  about  him  and 
quoted  him. 

Beginning  at  forty  years  of  age,  Case  1 1  wore  a  rain- 
coat and  rubber  overshoes  every  day  of  his  life  outdoors 
even  in  summer  at  noon.  Most  of  the  year,  he  wore 
under  the  raincoat  an  overcoat  and  around  his  neck  a 
muffler.  In  the  snows  of  winter,  he  wore  the  heaviest 
of  woolen  underwear  and  a  fur  cap  over  his  ears,  and 
rubber  boots  with  slippers  inside.  At  forty-two  years  of 
age,  he  began  to  drive  in  a  phaeton  everywhere,  for  he  was 
afraid  to  put  his  feet  upon  the  earth  and  avoided  even 
cold  sidewalks.     He  slept  in  a  warm  room  at  night. 

Case  1 1  spent  hours  every  day  studying  anatomy,  physi- 
ology, hygiene  and  sanitation  and  developed  several  fear- 
psychoses.  He  was  afraid  of  (a)  cold,  (b)  damp,  (c) 
wind,  (d)  germs.  He  liked  to  work  with  his  hands  and 
kept  a  printing  press  and  plant  in  the  first  floor  of  his 
home.  He  had  no  children ;  but  he  had  an  over  devoted 
coddling  wife.  In  all,  Case  1 1  spent  daily  perhaps  thirty 
minutes  out  of  doors  from  necessity.     If  his  means  had 

109 


no   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

permitted,  he  would  have  kept  a  coachman  and  a  closed 
coupe  and  had  the  coupe  heated  by  an  electric  foot 
warmer  twelve  months  in  the  year. 

Of  course,  this  process  completely  bleached  the  bru- 
nette pigment  from  the  skin  of  this  dark  Kelt  till  it  be- 
came like  white  tissue  paper  and  so  sensitive  that  he  could 
not  stand  a  Turkish  towel  rub  after  his  daily  warm  bath. 
This  bleached  skin  so  failed  in  its  normal  functions  as  to 
overload  kidneys  and  liver  and  lungs. 

After  forty,  sweat  considerably  every  day  from  exer- 
cise or  summer  heat ;  or  else  die  at  fifty-five  from  kidney 
disease !     Such  is  Nature's  law. 

Also,  this  process  softened  and  thinned  all  the  muscles 
of  Case  n,  internal  and  external,  including  the  alimentary 
canal.  He  lost  all  his  teeth  from  caries  and  pyorrhea 
despite  all  his  own  and  his  dentist's  efforts.  He  became 
abnormally  thin.  Six  feet  tall,  he  sank  to  125  pounds  in 
weight. 

His  diet  was  physiologically  ideal. 

His  colleagues,  especially  the  professors  of  hygiene  and 
of  biology,  warned  and  warned  him.  His  physicians 
gave  him  heart  stimulants  and  tonics.  All  to  no  purpose. 
Case  1 1  knew  that  he  could  not  live  long ;  and  he  did  not. 

His  wife  consented  to  an  autopsy,  which  showed  that 
there  was  nothing  structural  that  had  gone  wrong  in  him. 
Case  n  died  of  inanition.  His  metabolism  failed.  His 
embodied  spirit  had  insisted  upon  being  disembodied  and, 
of  course,  won. 

He  had  been  a  profound  scholar, —  with  the  vision  of  a 
statesman  and  with  the  English,  both  spoken  and  written, 
of  a  literary  artist.  He  was  a  master  of  the  classroom. 
No  saner  man  ever  talked  upon  public  affairs ;  no  wiser 
man  could  be  found  to  advise  others  within  the  field  of 
education.  Everything  queer  about  him  was  confined  to 
his  own  notions  about  himself. 


SSIVE  ANXIETY  ABOUT  HEALTH       m 


THE  ANCIENT    INSTINCTS 

The  riddle  is  easily  read.  Case  11  was  born  in  an  Irish 
hog  upon  the  wet  ist  of  Ireland.     For  thousands 

of  years,  his  race  had  lived  as  bog-trotters.  In  winter, 
their  thatched  blftS  were  full  of  the  smoke  of  burning 
peat.  Six  months  in  the  year,  they  tasted  fog  and  mist 
in  their  throats.  For  thousands  of  years,  his  forefathers 
had  run  around  with  their  feet  and  legs  wrapped  in  long 
hands  of  goat  skin ;  their  backs  covered  with  the  furry  or 
hairy  skins  or  pelts  of  whatever  animals  from  wolves  to 
cows  had  fallen  conveniently  to  their  hands ;  and  they 
were  never  warm.  This  scion  of  the  long  Irish  line  knew 
hygiene  and  saw  the  clear  air  of  America ;  but  he  felt  the 
damp  and  chill  of  the  Emerald  Isle.  Pure,  true,  uncon- 
querable instinct ! 

His  was  a  short-lived  race.  A  younger  brother  had 
already  died  of  consumption.  This  man  lived  to  an  older 
age  than  any  of  his  parents  or  grandparents ;  he  had  no 
hereditary  instinct  for  true  old  age,  hale  and  hearty. 

In  seeking  for  the  key  to  the  poor  health  of  some  per- 
sons, one  should  not  forget  these  ancient  instincts,  some 
of  them  long  antedating  the  humanness  of  man.  It  may 
be  hunger,  causing  the  patient  to  overeat.  It  may  be 
mony  and  fear  of  cruel  winter  and  still  more  cruel 
old  age  and  want.  It  may  be  the  sex-instinct  and  lust. 
It  may  be  vanity  causing  one  to  spend  upon  one's  front- 
and-back  what  should  be  spent  upon  one's  stomach.  It 
may  be  fear, —  fear  of  the  night ;  or  of  the  cold ;  or  of 
persecution  by  enemies,  whatever  the  fear  it  will  not 
reason,  nor  will  it  go  forth  and  acquire  the  facts  upon 
which  to  reason.  Instinct  causes  one  to  hide  in  oneself. 
One  of  the  most  frequent  instincts  is  the  fear  of  death, 
which   unless   rationalized  may  cause   death   by   causing 


ii2   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

cessation  of  effort.  Man  lives  best  by  adventure,  which 
releases  his  powers.  For  six  years,  Case  n  never  left 
the  town  in  which  he  lived  even  for  the  venture  of  a 
summer  vacation. 

In  the  differential  individual  diagnosis  which  is  essen- 
tial to  the  right  treatment  especially  of  these  intellectual 
persons  who  practice  the  art  of  teaching,  one  should 
often  try  to  get  below  the  habits  into  the  heart  where 
the  instincts  issue  their  commands.  Perhaps  an  instinct 
that  causes  as  much  trouble  even  as  fear  is  curiosity, 
such  as  keeps  a  scholarly  teacher  up  reading  all  hours  of 
the  night  or  working  in  his  laboratory  amid  fumes  that 
stifle  breath.  There  is  a  limit  to  the  gratification  that  a 
teacher  may  permit  to  his  curiosity  instinct. 

It  happens  that  in  this  case  under  consideraion,  the 
man  whose  fear  kept  him  indoors  so  much  had  also  an 
excessive  curiosity  such  as  required  him  to  read  a  vast 
amount  of  literature  that  a  mere  glance  should  have 
showed  to  him  was  altogether  useless  whether  for  his 
teaching  or  for  his  own  conduct.  Besides  the  fear  that 
almost  froze  the  blood  in  his  body,  there  was  this  tor- 
menting curiosity  that  kept  him  reading  hour  on  hour  at 
night  when  he  should  have  been  abed  and  asleep.  In- 
stincts are  useful  points  of  departure,  useful  sources  of 
action;  but  nothing  more.  Whom  they  master  in  civil- 
ized life,  they  slay. 


\ 


CHAPTER  XIV 
SURGICAL  RELIEF 

CASE    12 

CASE  12  was  that  of  a  high  school  teacher  of  English. 
She  was  a  typical  Saxon  woman, —  like  the  German 
Saxons  in  her  social  notions  rather  than  the  English,  born 
for  domestic  life  yet  highly  educated  in  a  woman's  college. 
Her  troubles  were  headaches  from  eye-strain  and  a  pain- 
ful shrinking  within  herself  due  to  timidity.  Despite  her 
parents  and  family  life,  she  solved  these  problems  and 
became  a  successful  and  happy  teacher. 

Any  one  who  teaches  English  well  has  too  many  papers 
to  read  for  the  good  of  one's  eyes.  Case  12  had  small 
light  blue  eyes  and  by  no  means  vigorous  physique.  Such 
eyes  see  well  but  easily  tire.  In  addition,  she  had  a  city 
school  superintendent  with  an  excessive  zeal  for  written 
reports  of  many  kinds  from  all  his  teachers.  Being  a 
very  conscientious  person,  anxious  to  meet  all  require- 
ments, Case  12  prepared  these  daily  reports  in  an  artistic 
and  finished  manner;  from  which  cause,  she  was  highly 
valued  by  the  main  office.  Finding  herself  among  those 
singled  out  for  especial  praise  and  for  extra  duties  ac- 
cordingly,—  such  as  faculty  adviser  to  the  high  school 
paper, —  made  Case  12  actually  ill.  Her  parents,  how- 
ever, were  delighted  that  by  the  third  year  of  her  teaching 
she  was  recognized  as  displaying  exceptional  talent. 

Case  12  promptly  resorted  to  an  excellent  oculist  who 
corrected  her  eye  astigmatism  and  forwarded  her  to  an 
expert  in  woman's  diseases.     The  second  physician  found 


ii4   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

that  she  needed  a  slight  surgical  operation,  which  he  per- 
formed forthwith.  Then  the  two  physicians,  having 
heard  about  these  teacher's  reports,  visited  the  school 
authorities  and  protested  against  them.  The  young  city 
superintendent,  university-trained,  was  taken  by  surprise 
and  capitulated.  Soon  afterwards,  a  man  of  more  expe- 
rience and  less  education  succeeded  him;  and  reports 
were  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

The  parents  and  friends  of  Case  12  noticed  a  rapid 
and  gratifying  change  in  her  disposition  toward  life.  She 
ceased  to  be  timid.  She  ceased  to  have  headaches.  She 
took  more  interest  in  social  affairs,  and  much  more  inter- 
est in  her  own  health  and  strength.  At  the  end  of  her 
first  eight  years  of  service,  she  took  a  leave  of  absence 
without  salary  and  went  travelling  in  our  own  country. 
A  long  illness  of  a  brother  from  tuberculosis,  with  partial 
recovery  by  wise  therapy  and  life  in  the  Adirondacks  and 
later  in  Arizona,  taught  Case  12  the  importance  of  not 
getting  so  far  down  in  bodily  vigor  as  to  be  an  easy  prey 
to  that  scourge  of  humanity  and  specially  severe  and  fre- 
quent curse  of  teachers. 

Fifteen  years  after  these  treatments,  Case  12  was  the 
picture  of  good  health ;  body  coefficient  2.25 ;  pulse  780 ; 
temperature  98.7 °  at  noon.  And  she  wore  her  spectacles 
good-naturedly.  She  had  quite  forgotten,  so  she  ex- 
plained, that  she  had  almost  broken  down  at  twenty-four 
years  of  age.  "  One  warning  was  enough,"  she  said,  with 
a  smile.  The  high  school  in  which  she  teaches  has  but 
twelve  pupils  on  the  average  to  one  teacher.  The  mini- 
mum salary  of  a  teacher  is  $1,000;  the  maximum  $1800 
(not  including  the  principal).  The  building  in  which  she 
teaches  is  commodious,  sanitary,  modern.  The  sessions 
are  from  9  a.  m.  to  12  a.  m.  and  from  1 115  p.  m.  to  3. 
Conditions  are  favorable  to  all  teachers,  as,  of  course, 
they  should  be. 


CHAPTER  XV 
SCHOOL  EPIDEMICS 

CASE    13 

THE  double  kindergarten  in  the  public  school  con- 
cerned in  Case  13  was  a  fine,  large,  sunny  affair 
where  every  one  was  always  happy.  There  was  a  good 
piano,  and  the  floor  was  kept  remarkably  clean.  It  was 
scrubbed  once  a  week,  and  brushed  every  afternoon.  The 
tone  of  the  entire  situation  was  cheerful,  even  joyous. 
Nor  was  the  number  of  children, —  averaging  45, —  exces- 
sive for  a  double  kindergarten  with  two  healthy,  well- 
trained  kindergartners,  required  to  be  at  school  in  all 
only  three  hours  a  day.  The  session  itself  was  from  9 
a.m.  to  11:20.  The  women  had  fair  salaries  for  the 
period, —  about  1900, —  viz.  $600  and  $500. 

But  the  children !  They  represented  more  than  a  dozen 
different  nationalities, —  Italians,  Hungarians,  Poles, 
Russians,  Jews,  Germans,  Swedes,  Dutch,  American 
negroes  of  several  colors,  French  Canadians,  colonial 
Yankees,  English  immigrants,  and  others.  The  room 
was  more  than  a  kaleidoscope ;  it  was  a  current  of  tran- 
sients. 

Several  times  a  week,  this  room  was  carefully  sprayed 
with  disinfectant  from  a  big  atomizer.  But  as  these 
kindergartners  explained,  no  sooner  had  the  mother> 
(who  met  there  every  week  or  two)  learned  how  to  keep 
their  children  clean  than  they  moved  out  of  the  district 
or  the  children  were  promoted  to  first  grade,  and  new 
and  ignorant  mothers  with  more  dirty  children  took  their 
places. 


n6   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

One  day  visiting  the  school  the  city  superintendent 
found  a  big  boy  carefully  sewed  up  for  the  winter  by  his 
mother  who  had  sent  a  note  as  follows,  viz.  "  Don't  you 
try  again  to  wash  him.  I  fixed  him  right.  My  man  say 
not  touch  John."  The  city  superintendent  took  the  boy 
into  the  principal's  office  and,  despite  violent  resistance, 
took  off  all  his  clothing  and  gave  him  a  perfect  bath  with 
a  vigorous  rub  down.  That  afternoon,  both  parents 
rushed  to  the  schoolhouse  and  tried  to  find  the  superin- 
tendent, loudly  declaiming  to  the  principal  that  the  boy 
had  never  been  washed  before  and  must  never  be  washed 
again  lest  he  "  catch  cold  and  get  dead." 

Many  a  glorious  transformation  in  character,  conduct, 
hygiene  and  personal  appearance  was  wrought  by  the 
kindergartners  there,  battling  against  the  ignorance  of 
European  field  peasants  become  American  city  factory 
workers. 

Then  came  an  epidemic  of  measles  in  virulent  form. 
The  germs  seemed  strangely  efficient.  Even  the  adults  of 
the  foreign  ward  had  hard  cases.  Though  not  a  single 
victim  died,  many  were  ill  a  long  time  and  had  serious 
sequelae,  such  as  running  of  the  ears  and  badly  inflamed 
eyes. 

Case  13  was  the  kindergarten  assistant, —  age  twenty- 
one,  body  coefficient  2.10,  of  Scotch-Saxon  heredity.  The 
older  woman  kept  her  throat  well  sprayed  with  mild  dis- 
infectants and  kept  her  hands  off  the  clothes  of  the 
children. 

Whether  Case  13  caught  the  infection  from  a  child  just 
coming  down  with  it  or  from  one  released  too  early  from 
quarantine  or  otherwise,  is  unknown ;  but  there  was  a  ter- 
rific onset  and  a  long,  long  battle  for  life  and  a  recovery 
that  required  half  a  year.  Measles?  Yes,  measles. 
Possibly,  the  measles  were  complicated  with  something 
else;  but  at  any  rate,  measles  was  the  carrier. 


SCHOOL  EPIDEMICS  117 

Sometimes,  the  teacher  catches  whooping-cough; 
sometimes,  the  pneumonic  plague  (influenza)  ;  sometimes, 
diphtheria;  sometimes,  even  tuberculosis  from  her 
charges.  It  is  true  that  teachers  catch  infectious  dis- 
eases from  children  less  often  than  is  popularly  supposed. 
One  of  Nature's  rules  helps  the  adult  who  teaches  chil- 
dren ;  for  adults  seldom  catch  diseases  from  children. 
Statistics  indicate  that  the  chance  of  catching  most  dis- 
eases from  persons  not  half -grown  by  persons  full-grown 
is  but  one-third  that  of  catching  diseases  from  others 
full-grown.  Probably,  teachers  catch  infectious  diseases 
from  children  through  repeated  and  cumulative  infections 
so  that  when  taken  ill,  they  become  serious  cases,  need- 
ing great  care. 

What  is  the  prophylaxis  indicated  ? 


DISEASES   OF  THE   CROWD 

All  infectious  diseases  are  herd  or  crowd  diseases.  Do 
not  allow  the  children  to  play  too  near  together  or  close 
to  oneself.  Wear  gloves  when  handling  their  clothes, 
wash  face  and  hands  well  with  soap  and  hot  water  and 
spray  throat  and  nose  well  after  school  both  morning 
and  afternoon.  Keep  the  lungs  filled  with  fresh  air  as 
much  as  possible.  And  by  all  means  go  to  bed  and  get  a 
physician  when  one  has  the  first  symptom  of  any  epidemic 
disease. 

As  for  contagious  diseases,  one  may  get  them  as  readily 
from  a  child  as  from  another  adult. 

In  a  schoolhouse  with  seventeen  rooms  and  eighteen 
teachers  with  over  700  children,  one  spring,  there  were 
over  200  cases  at  one  time  of  the  following  diseases, 
viz. —  diphtheria,  tonsilitis,  pneumonia,  grippe,  sore 
throat  (  ?),  colds-in-the-head  (?)  and  whooping-cough. 

Before  these  diseases  had  run  their  courses  over  300 


n8   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

pupils  with  three  teachers  had  been  ill.     Two  children 
died,  one  of  diphtheria,  the  other  of  pneumonia. 

This  schoolhouse  had  three  floors  in  use, —  seven  rooms 
on  the  first  floor,  eight  on  the  second  and  two  on  the  third. 
There  were  two  daily  school  assemblies,  the  first  floor 
making  one,  the  other  two  floors  another.  All  but  two  of 
these  300  cases  occurred  in  the  rooms  upon  the  first 
floor,  the  two  exceptions  being  cases  in  the  same  families 
with  children  upon  the  first  floor.  In  respect,  to  the 
teachers,  all  three  cases  occurred  at  the  first  rush  of  the 
epidemic;  and  they  may  have  taken  the  infections  from 
outside  the  school.  However,  be  this  as  it  may,  the  his- 
tory of  this  school  epidemic  of  throat  and  lung  troubles 
shows  that  it  was  not  in  the  air  "  but  was  directly  due 
to  human  contact. 

The  school  authorities  reacted  vigorously.  Every  room 
was  thoroughly  fumigated  with  formaldehyde  from  Fri- 
day to  Monday  for  four  successive  weeks.  All  the  wood- 
work, floors  and  desks  were  well  washed  with  soap  and 
hot  water  and  wiped  over  with  an  antiseptic  solution. 
There  was  effective  quarantining  of  every  home  that  had 
a  case.  Some  days  only  one  child  in  ten  or  twelve  was 
at  school  upon  the  first  floor,  while  the  attendance  up- 
stairs was  reduced  only  by  the  absence  of  children  in  the 
same  family  with  illness. 

The  teachers  were  vigilant  to  see  that  none  of  the 
force  should  get  the  infection  in  the  characteristic  return 
a  few  weeks  later.     No  such  return  occurred. 

Some  epidemics  do  not  cease  until  they  have  made  two 
or  three  quick  tours  of  the  world, —  that  is,  within  two  or 
three  years.  In  these  tours,  they  spiral  and  eddy  among 
the  various  peoples  in  cities  and  towns  and  countryside 
until  every  person  has  been  tried  out  to  discover  whether 
he  i-s  immune  or  a  victim. 

It  is  a  fair  question  whether  any  process  within  the 


SCHOOL  EPIDEMICS  119 

opportunities  of  the  teachers  and  medical  inspectors  and 
nurses  engaged  in  public  education  can  ever  completely 
defeat  these  epidemics  among  children.  Finally,  the  race 
will  defeat  them,  but  resort  must  be  had  to  expert  sani- 
tarians and  to  stringent  police  measures  quite  beyond 
the  time,  the  authority  and  the  scientific  preparation  of 
teachers.  From  the  viewpoint  of  the  general  human  wel- 
fare in  which  all  society  is  concerned,  it  is  expedient  that 
the  two  functions  of  teaching  and  of  public  hygiene 
should  be  separated  after  the  elementary  stages  are 
passed.     Civilization  is  mainly  specialization. 

So  much  as  this,  nevertheless,  is  advisable :  —  viz.  that 
teachers  should  use  all  reasonable  personal  precautions 
at  the  first  sign  of  the  coming  of  any  infectious  disease, — 
whether  whooping-cough,  measles,  scarlet  fever,  pneu- 
monic plague  or  anything  else;  and  that  cities,  counties 
and  villages  should  have  competent  sanitarians  in  charge 
of  all  public  health  problems.  Teachers  should  advocate 
health  officers  and  support  their  work  enthusiastically  and 
intelligently.  The  mind  of  every  teacher  should  be  ap- 
preciative of  everything  truly  scientific. 

The  reasonable  precautions  to  be  taken,  so  far  as  they 
were  known  in  1900,  were  then -taken.  The  present  epoch 
is  yet  wiser;  and  in  school  and  college,  we  are  making 
ever  more  and  more  successful  resistance  to  the  invasions 
of  infectious  germs. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

IGNORANCE  OF  SEX  ABERRATIONS  IN 
OTHERS 

Cases  14  and  15 

CASES  14  and  15  turn  upon  the  same  need:  —  that 
young  women  shall  have  a  rational  knowledge  of 
sex-aberrations  in  defective  and  unbalanced  men. 

The  first  of  these  cases  was  that  of  a  slender  young 
woman  teaching  in  a  rural  school  with  a  zeal  utterly 
oblivious  of  the  real  boys  and  girls  with  whom  she  was 
dealing.  One  of  these  boys  was  fourteen  years  old,  of 
Italian  race.  She  was  blond  Saxon,  eight  years  older 
chronologically.  He  was  in  the  Third  Reader  class.  He 
would  linger  after  school  almost  every  day.  At  times, 
he  was  insubordinate,  but  usually  he  was  amiable  and 
dependent.  Often,  he  dogged  her  footsteps  to  her  farm 
boarding  home. 

Late  one  winter  afternoon,  he  followed  her  from  the 
village  post  office.  Just  what  occurred  thereafter  will 
never  be  known.  Her  body  was  found  in  the  woods 
some  hundreds  of  yards  from  the  highroad.  She  had 
perhaps  tried  to  run  away  from  him.  At  the  trial,  there 
was  displayed  a  heavy  wrench  wrapped  in  flannel  with 
which  her  skull  had  been  fractured.  Her  clothing  was 
badly  torn  as  if  in  struggle.  What  was  evident  was  that 
this  boy  had  conceived  a  violent  sex-passion  for  this 
young  woman  and  meant  to  knock  her  unconscious  though 
not  to  kill  her. 

She  herself,  of  course,  had  never  imagined  that  his 

120 


IGNORANCE  OF  SEX  121 

lingering  about  her  and  his  excessive  interest  in  her  were 
due  to  the  criminal  instinct  of  lust  ripening  into  assault. 
She  knew  nothing  of  the  sex-life  beyond  the  monthly  ill- 
ness of  woman. 

The  second  of  these  cases  was  that  of  a  brunette  in  a 
city  school.  She  hated  the  bachelor  principal,  who  con- 
stantly begged  her  to  marry  him.  It  was,  however,  her 
custom  to  remain  after  school  sometimes  for  hours  cor- 
recting papers  and  preparing  the  work  of  the  next  day. 
In  the  city  system,  the  rule  prevailed  that  no  salary  was 
raised  without  the  recommendation  of  the  next  higher 
officer.  Being  oblivious  to  all  sex-phenomena,  Case  14 
tried  to  please  her  principal  as  a  faithful  teacher.  That 
anything  serious  would  befall  herself  was  wholly  outside 
the  range  of  her  imagination. 

Of  course,  the  personal  loathing  that  she  felt  for  the 
man  and  her  excessive  diligence  as  a  teacher  wore  out 
her  nervous  strength  and  resistance.  Her  ruin  followed. 
Worry  had  caused  a  devolution  of  the  powers  of  rational 
self-control  and  of  resistance  to  the  will  of  another. 
One  Friday  evening  she  failed  to  return  home.  Four 
days  afterwards  her  body  was  found  embalmed  in  the 
basement  of  an  establishment  run  by  two  physicians  of 
the  city.  The  principal  and  the  physicians  fled,  but  after 
weeks  of  search  all  three  were  found  and  brought  before 
the  grand  jury.  The  evidence  showed  that  the  young 
woman  herself  had  insisted  upon  the  criminal  abortion 
and  that  the  man  in  the  case  had  begged  her  to  marry  him. 
In  this  oase,  contrary  to  nearly  all  such  cases,  the  man  was 
of  independent  means,  able  to  "  live  respectably  without 
work,"  and  the  woman  had  a  good  home  with  parents  of 
large  means.  Poverty  had  nothing  to  do  with  either  of 
them.  Blind  lust  and  blind  innocence  explained  the  whole 
case. 

This  whole  story  (like  the  other)  is  fully  reported  in 


122   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

the  court  annals.  The  Italian  moron  was  duly  executed ; 
the  two  physicians  and  the  principal  got  off  on  technicali- 
ties of  the  law,  but,  of  course,  left  the  city  of  their  joint 
and  several  crimes,  doomed  to  lifelong  ostracism  by  the 
decent.  The  principal  was  a  hypermoron,  a  first  class 
fool ;  the  dead  woman  was  a  highly  intelligent  victim  of 
her  own  ignorance  of  a  tabooed  subject  of  fatal  impor- 
tance to  herself. 

There  are  modes  of  relief  from  such  situations.  The 
rural  school  teacher  should  have  refused  admission  to 
the  school  to  the  overgrown  moron;  and  quit  teaching  if 
the  school  directors  did  not  sustain  her  discipline.  The 
urban  teacher  should  have  reported  the  truth  about  the 
wooing  of  herself  after  school  by  the  loathed  principal 
to  the  city  school  authorities  higher  up,  who  would  have 
transferred  her  to  another  school,  or,  better,  have  imme- 
diately discharged  the  man  from  service. 

Case  14  was  followed  two  years  later  by  two  similar 
cases,  though  without  fatalities,  and  in  these  cases  the 
men  involved  were  committed  to  the  penitentiary ;  it  bore 
fruit  for  the  general  good,  but  at  terrible  price. 


THE   DANGERS    OF   FATAL    INNOCENCE 

Both  of  these  young  women, —  they  were  twenty-two 
and  twenty-five  years  of  age  respectively, —  failed  in 
knowledge  of  physiology  and  hygiene  because  they  had 
never  seen  books  or  even  articles  or  had  oral  instruction 
as  to  sex-psychology.  The  world  is  moving  along  better 
now.  Experienced  women  teachers  can  apply  general 
tests  of  abilities  that  distinguish  idiots,  imbeciles,  the 
choreic,  the  epileptic,  the  feeble-minded,  the  moron,  sul- 
len, amiable  and  superior,  from  one  another  and  from 
normal  children,  youth  and  adults  of  the  several  ages. 
Just  now,  we  are  going  through  an  epoch  of  astonishment 


IGNORANCE  OF  SEX  123 

over  the  prevalency  of  the  venereal  diseases  and  of  their 
sequelae.  In  the  years  ahead,  we  shall  awaken  to  the 
need  of  proper  instruction  in  sex-hygiene  to  cure  the  sex- 
aberrations  that  almost  invariably  precede  the  vices  and 
crimes  due  to  irrational  and  uncontrolled  sex-conduct. 

In  some  cases,  unhappily,  the  isolation  of  the  few  adult 
teachers  among  many  children,  or  even  of  one  teacher 
alone  with  youth  among  whom  may  be  one  sexually  de- 
ranged, becomes  an  active  peril  by  developing  an  inner 
morbidness  that  to  be  conquered  must  first  be  under- 
stood. Here  wise  teaching  in  youth  is  the  true  prophy- 
laxis, short-circuiting  experience  and  often  actually  pre- 
venting it.  Every  soul  perhaps  is  the  seat  of  all  instincts 
and  of  all  passions,  the  arena  of  the  struggles  of  a  uni- 
versal human  nature ;  but  as  we  have  been  taught  of  old, 
we  may  anticipate  in  the  constructive  imagination  the 
possible  outcomes  of  alternative  courses  and  by  ration- 
alizing our  thought  and  emotion  save  ourselves  from  al- 
most every  trouble. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

TOO  SUCCESSFUL  AND  OBLIGING 

Case  16 

THIS  little  man  was  considered  the  very  best  teacher 
in  a  large  city.  Next  to  the  city  school  superin- 
tendent and  the  high  school  principals,  he  drew  the  high- 
est salary  by  a  special  rule  of  the  board  of  education. 
It  was  so  freely  admitted  that  he  was  the  one  supremely 
competent  class  teacher  that  no  objection  was  made  to  his 
being  paid  this  exceptional  salary.  He  was  the  model  for 
all  other  high  school  teachers.  This  salary  was  half 
again  higher  than  that  of  even  the  grammar  school  men 
principals.  He  was  offered  many  college  professorships 
but  declined  them  one  and  all.  Though  he  taught  Homer 
in  Greek  and  Virgil  in  Latin  and  the  history  of  English 
Literature  as  his  regular  program;  —  being  really  head 
of  these  departments,  he  did  not  rank  as  head  of  any  de- 
partment. Literally,  he  could  teach  anything;  any  lan- 
guage, any  science,  any  mathematics. 

Also,  he  was  the  church  organist  for  the  most  promi- 
nent of  all  the  congregations  in  the  city. 

Also,  he  gave  private  lessons  at  his  home  in  music  or  in 
languages  or  in  anything  else  upon  occasion. 

His  only  recreation  was  caring  for  his  horse  and  his 
garden.  He  never  worked  from  July  I  to  August  31  ; 
but  he  worked  on  schedule  every  day  from  September  1 
to  June  30.     He  had  a  large  family  of  children. 

At  forty-eight  years  of  age,  "  something  broke."  He 
had  saved  some  money,  and  his  wife  took  him  to  a  private 

124 


TOO  SUCCESSFUL  AND  OBLIGING       125 

arium  to  recover.  After  six  months,  he  resumed 
work.  Then  "  something  worse  broke."  The  authorities 
then  took  him  to  a  public  asylum  for  the  insane.  He  re- 
covered and  wished  to  go  home.  With  an  attendant,  he 
went  upon  a  train.  While  the  train  was  going  full  speed, 
he  quietly  slipped  to  the  rear  car  and  jumped  off.  He 
was  picked  up  dead.  He  was  commonly  called  a  suicide, 
but  the  truth  was  simply  that  he  was  "  insane  " ;  he  didn't 
know  what  he  was  doing.  Probably,  the  noise  of  the 
train  hurt  his  feelings,  and  he  wished  to  get  away  from  it 
quickly.  The  medical  men  all  agreed  that  "  structurally 
there  was  nothing  the  matter  with  him."  Functionally, 
Case  16  had  these  several  difficulties,  viz.  : 

1.  His  auditory  tract  was  sore;  worn  out;  he  hated 
noise ;  could  not  listen  any  more. 

2.  His  vocal  organs  and  speech  centers  were  worn  out. 
He  could  not  say  what  he  wished  to  say,  and  refused  to 
try. 

3.  His  eyes  were  worn  out,  and  he  hated  light. 

4.  The  alimentary  canal  was  too  poorly  nourished  to  be 
willing  to  function.  From  end  to  end,  it  was  torpid  and 
anemic. 

Yet  this  little  man  had  an  excellent  knowledge  of  human 
physiology;  he  often  talked  to  the  school  very  intelli- 
gently about  it. 


OVERDOING    KINDNESS   TO  OTHERS 

With  a  pale  skin,  though  not  thin,  with  beautiful  blue 
eyes,  with  a  fine,  rich,  musical  voice,  with  exquisite  man- 
ners, sympathetic,  alert,  honorable  to  the  least  detail,  this 
good  father  and  admirable  teacher  won  universal  social 
favor  but  misconstrued  his  relation  to  humanity.  He 
misconceived,  as  do  many  teachers,  the  extent  of  his  own 
duties  to  others.     He  was  neither  an  egotist,  working  for 


126   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

his  own  pocket  or  for  fame  and  power,  nor  so  conceited 
as  to  imagine  that  he  could  do  things  better  than  anyone 
else.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  humble  and  modest; 
obliging,  too  obliging.  There  is  a  line  in  Edwin  Arnold's 
"Light  of  Asia"  where  the  Buddha  teaches:  "Who 
needs  me,  commands  me."  Case  16  believed  and  prac- 
tised this.  He  was  anything  but  a  weak  man.  He  was 
perfectly  willing  to  say  "  No,"  and  stick  to  it ;  but  he  con- 
sidered it  his  duty  to  do  whatever  seemed  to  need  doing. 
All  the  advertising  of  himself  was  done  by  others.  The 
trouble  with  him  was  not,  as  some  imagined,  the  unintel- 
ligent indefatigability  of  the  habit-minded  hypermoron 
plaeed  in  a  position  above  his  mediocre  abilities  to  fill. 
Case  1 6  was  a  natural  humorist  and  understood  himself 
as  a  mind  quite  well. 

Nevertheless,  he  did  not  understand  himself  as  a  human 
body,  and  to  him  -the  commandment  to  take  one  day  of 
rest  in  seven  did  not  reach  his  will. 

Nature  does  not  build  men  to  work  three  hundred  and 
three  consecutive  days  in  the  year  for  thirty  years.  If 
Case  1 6  had  done  no  evening  work  five  evenings  a  week 
and  had  rested  all  day  Saturday,  he  might  have  lived  the 
alloted  span  of  three  score  years  and  ten.  Half-Saxon 
and  for  the  rest  a  mixture  of  half  the  races  upon  the 
British  Isles,  he  failed  in  one  item  of  what  proved  to  be 
fatal  importance; — -knowing  how  and  when  to  rest,  to 
do  nothing. 

It  was  Walt  Whitman  who  wrote,  "I  loaf  and  invite 
my  soul.  I  sit  at  my  ease  observing  a  spear  of  summer 
grass."  This  spirit  of  knowing  how  to  sit  at  ease  comes 
by  heredity  to  the  naturally  healthy.  Others  may  learn 
it  by  experience.  Those  who  have  it  not  go  insane  or 
die  young,  or  through  illness,  learn  wisdom. 

The  need  of  daily  leisure  is  perhaps  the  only  excuse  for 
smoking  tobacco  in  pipe  or  cigar;  this  takes  time  and 


TOO  SUCCESSFUL  AND  OBLIGING       127 

thought  and  a  measure  of  indolence.  Of  course,  some 
hustlers  while  hustling  smoke  tobacco;  but  to  enjoy  a 
cigar,  an  idle  half  hour  is  the  desideratum.  Hustling 
through  a  good  cigar  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  like 
bolting  in  single  gulps  a  box  of  chocolate  candies  or  talk- 
ing out  an  opera. 

A  much  larger  proportion  of  women  teachers  than  of 
nun  make  the  same  mistake  as  did  Case  16.  They  even 
drive  themselves  out  of  bed  in  the  morning  with  a  hot 
OQp  of  clear  black  coffee.  They  drive  themselves  back 
to  the  classrooms  in  the  afternoon  with  a  hot  cup  of  black 
tea.  Case  16  did  neither.  But  he  did  drive  himself  to 
duty  seven  days  in  the  week  with  verses  that  are  quite  as 
dangerous  to  the  health  as  tea  or  coffee.  These  are  the 
verses  that  he  often  recited  to  his  boys  and  girls ;  and  the 
music  of  which  he  often  played  at  church,  viz. — 

"  I  ill  brightest  hours  with  labor; 
Rest  comes  sure  and  soon  ; 
Give  every  flying  minute 
Something  to  keep  in  store ; 
Work  till  the  last  beam  fadeth 
When  man  works  no  more." 

There  was  no  therapy  that  could  cure  Case  16;  and 
there  never  will  be  any.  If  he  had  been  cured,  he  would 
have  gone  to  work  again  just  as  hard.  What  he  needed 
was  a  different  set  of  ideas,  early  in  life;  and  in  this  set 
of  ideas,  he  needed  one  which  said,  H  Six  days,  sunrise  to 
et,  shalt  thou  labor,  at  various  tasks,  resting  betimes 
for  meals,  and  not  one  hour  more  in  any  seven." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

A  VICTIM  OF  TOO  MUCH  "  SANITATION  " 

Case  17 

CASE  17  was  one  of  the  healthiest  women  who  ever 
began  to  teach  and  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
sensible.     Still,  she  had  peculiarities, —  as  who  has  not? 

Among  her  peculiarities  was  a  very  great  interest  in 
health  and  sanitation,  such  an  interest  as  usually  leads  a 
woman  to  become  a  physician  herself  or  at  least  a  trained 
nurse  or  at  the  very  least  a  teacher  of  physical  culture  in 
the  schools;  but  almost  immediately  upon  her  entrance 
into  teaching,  this  lady  became  the  special  instructor  of  a 
class  of  incorrigibles. 

She  had  a  room  in  one  of  the  finest  schoolhouses  then 
in  existence  in  America,  as  scientific  in  all  its  appoint- 
ments as  the  science  of  the  period  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century  permitted.  Of  course,  the  room  had 
a  big  supply  flue  and  a  big  exhaust  vent ;  and  the  building 
had  great  fans  to  drive  the  fresh  air  in  and  to  draw  out 
the  foul  air.  Also,  of  course,  the  windows  were  never 
opened  lest  this  should  interfere  with  the  ventilating 
system. 

In  her  room  for  these  incorrigibles,  the  teacher  had  a 
fine  outfit  of  benches,  tools,  books,  indeed  everything  that 
she  thought  of  as  desirable.  There  was  upon  her  desk  a 
beautiful,  big  statue  in  plaster  of  one  who  was  then  a 
famous  prize  fighter.  Some  of  the  boys  greatly  admired 
this  work  of  art. 

One  day  the  teacher  contracted  a  very  heavy  cold,  and 

128 


POO  Ml VI I  -SANITATION"  tag 

physician  who  was  the  favorite  in  that  neighbor- 
hood among  the  teachers.  He  kept  her  out  of  school  two 
.  and  she  promptly  got  well,  very  well. 

Then  she  returned  to  school  and  to  the  usual  program 
of  her  life.  But  she  was  soon  sick  again,  and  this  time 
developed  a  bad  cough.  In  a  week,  however,  by  staying 
out  of  school  and  obeying  her  physician,  she  was  once 
more  well  and  vigorous. 

A  month  later,  she  became  really  very  ill.  It  looked 
like  a  case  of  pneumonia ;  but  it  proved  to  be  only  a  bron- 
chial trouble  with  neuralgia  of  the  face  and  neck.  This 
lime,  the  physician,  after  his  patient  had  recovered,  took 
the  notion  of  going  into  the  schoolhouse  to  discover 
whethef  or  not  something  there  was  not  the  compelling 
cause  for  this  series  of  disturbances. 

What  he  actually  found  was  this,  in  full,  viz. — 

i .  The  teacher  had  formed  the  habit  of  standing  beside 
the  statue  when  doing  much  of  her  teaching  and  that  the 
itatue  was  directly  under  the  big  draft  of  air  that  came 
into  the  room  from  the  warm  flue. 

2.  She  went  at  each  recess  time  into  the  basement  and 
stood  at  a  point  to  direct  the  play  of  her  boys  where  it  so 
happened  that  a  strong  draft  blew  down  the  staircase. 


REFORMING   THE   SCHOOL   SYSTEM 

A  little  computation  showed  him  that  the  teacher  was 
being  subjected  three-fourths  of  her  time  daily  to  heavy 
.1  rafts,  one  cold,  the  other  warm. 

He  persuaded  the  school  authorities  to  put  a  galvanized 
iron  deflector  over  the  warm  air  flue;  he  ordered  the 
teacher  to  move  her  desk  and  statue  to  a  different  part  of 
the  room ;  he  secured  relief  for  her  from  being  on  dir 
that  point  in  the  basement  at  recess  time;  and  he  illumi- 
i  the  school  architect  and  the  board  of  education  suf- 


130   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

ficiently  to  abate  partly  the  order  never  to  open  a  window. 

In  that  reformed  schoolroom  and  schoolhouse,  this 
teacher  went  on  teaching  for  two  years  longer,  with  never 
the  slightest  difficulty.  She  then  went  to  another  city  to 
take  charge  of  a  group  of  classes  for  incorrigibles  and 
defectives,  and  when  last  heard  from,  six  years  after- 
wards, she  reported  that  she  had  never  needed  to  consult  a 
physician  for  herself  again.  But  she  styles  herself  the 
"  victim  of  too  much  sanitation,"  and  thereby  the  means 
of  saving  weaker  women  from  perhaps  fatal  illnesses. 

Do  not  stand  long  in  a  breeze ;  it  may  bring  on  rheu- 
matism or  a  fever,  or  worse. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
OVEREATING 
Cases  18  to  21 

LET  us  call  these  four  men  Cases  18  to  21.  All  had 
the  same  trouble.  One  was  under  observation  from 
the  ages  of  seventy  to  eighty  years;  the  second  from 
thirty-five  to  fifty;  the  third  from  thirty-one  to  thirty- 
four;  and  the  fourth  the  same.  All  are  living  at  this 
date.  Yet  their  trouble  is  often  fatal.  All  take  very 
good  care  of  themselves  under  constant  medical  advice. 

Cases  18  to  21  enjoy  eating.  Though  criticized  by 
others,  they  like  to  sit  for  hours  and  eat  and  eat,  at  first 
gorging,  then  slowing  down.  They  are  the  hungry  sav- 
ages of  a  very  ancient  race,  who  have  reappeared.  They 
are  upon  the  fine  edge  that  delimits  yet  joins  the  muscu- 
lar motor  and  the  vital  corpulent.  Were  they  vital  cor- 
pulent, they  would  have  still  more  somesthesia  and 
would  know  that  their  stomachs  were  full,  and  they 
would  then  automatically  stop  eating.  Were  they  mus- 
cular motor,  they  would  stop  when  fed  and  tread  away 
heavily  to  heavy  work ;  for  then  they  would  be  kinesthe- 
siac  and  would  enjoy  work  even  more  than  eating.  But 
they  have  the  qualities  of  both  temperaments,  some  good, 
some  bad.  Therefore,  Cases  18  to  21  overeat  and  under- 
work, yet  make  blood,  more  blood,  lots  of  it.  Their 
physicians  say  that  they  make  too  much  blood.  Also, 
their  livers  secrete  too  much  bile.  All  of  them  have  too 
swift  digestions  and  too  loose  and  frequent  movements 
due  to  floods  of  bile. 

131 


132   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Cases  1 8  to  21  have  some  days  when  their  suprarenal 
glands,  gall  bladders  and  hearts  behave  badly ;  thereafter, 
they  are  low  in  spirits,  often  anticipating  immediate  dis- 
solution in  early  graves.  They  get  angry,  but  only  on 
great  provocation;  being  otherwise,  generally,  too  good- 
natured  for  their  own  good.  Their  bodies  victimize  them. 
All  are  constantly  under  medical  treatment  and  have  at 
last  learned  much,  though  not  complete,  self-control. 
Their  physicians  keep  them  on  fruits,  toast  and  eggs,  po- 
tatoes and  other  vegetables,  soups  and  light  foods.  No 
milk  or  tea  or  chocolate,  very  little  coffee,  no  tobacco. 
Cereals  and  meats  are  partaken  of  in  small  amounts  but 
once  a  day.  They  eat  sixteen  or  eighteen  meals  a  week, 
not  twenty-one,  cutting  out  Sunday  supper  and  several 
lunches. 

On  this  basis,  every  one  of  them  is  a  great  worker,  a 
hustler,  very  influential  among  men,  women  and  children. 
Once  in  awhile,  they  take  a  meal  away  from  home  and 
fall  down  by  overeating.  Also  once  in  awhile,  they  really 
do  suffer  from  undereating,  and  their  physicians  increase 
the  intake  slightly  for  a  few  days. 

In  the  years  to  come,  either  the  physicians  or  the  sur- 
geons will  discover  how  to  cure  these  cases ;  perhaps  even 
how  in  youth  to  prevent  their  development.  Such  men 
as  these  are  physically  out  of  place  in  schoolhouses  and 
in  college  halls.  Education  is  not  the  life  for  them. 
But  for  this  very  cause,  they  make  highly  valuable  spe- 
cial contributions.  All  such  cases  are  very  human  per- 
sons, full  of  feelings,  passions,  energies,  errors;  mostly 
kind-hearted,  seldom  persistent  in  endeavor  but  never 
feeble.  They  do  not  understand  others  well,  but  they 
usually  pity  them.  Theirs  is  the  temperament  easily  first 
for  oratory  and  politics.  Some  women  have  it.  Daniel 
Webster  had  it ;  but  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  full  muscu- 
lar motor,  and  Benjamin  Franklin  was  vital  corpulent. 


OVEREATING  133 

This  is  the  temperament  for  school  principals  and  for 
college  presidents,  for  pastors  of  great  churches  and  for 
capitalists,  who  do  not  directly  manage  business  affairs. 

Unfortunately  for  themselves,  men  of  this  tempera- 
ment are  not  usually  self-conscious  enough  deliberately 
early  in  life  to  estimate  the  effects  of  a  probable  future 
environment  due  to  any  particular  occupation;  but  set- 
ting themselves  vigorously  into  one  perhaps  contra-in- 
dicated in  their  cases,  they  may  become  within  a  few 
years  the  victims  of  their  own  mistakes.  They  are  not, 
however,  so  set  in  their  own  courses  as  to  be  incapable 
of  correction  by  others ;  and  any  physician  or  fellow  edu- 
cator who  turns  the  man  of  this  muscular  motor  tem- 
perament out  of  the  ordinary  classroom  either  into  ex- 
ecutive work  or  into  some  occupation  for  which  he  is 
temperamentally  indicated  does  both  him  and  the  world 
a  true  service.  Sometimes  the  man  saves  himself  by 
awaking  to  the  meaning  of  the  familiar  lines  of  Robert 
Burns,  and  acquires  the  power  to  see  himself  as  others 
see  him.     Here  again  a  word  to  the  wise  may  suffice. 


PART  II 
THE  RATIONALE  OF  HEALTH  CONTROL 


"  The  goal  of  human  evolution  seems  to  be  a  race  of 
vigorous,  healthy,  well-balanced,  whole  men  and  women, 
who  will  have  well-grown,  fully  developed,  strong  and 
tough  bodies.  Nature  framed  her  bill  of  compulsory 
education  long  before  man  appeared  upon  the  earth." 

Man  in  the  Light  of  Evolution.     Chap.  VII.     Tyler. 


CHAPTER  XX 
SLEEP 

GENERAL   STATEMENT 

HEALTH-CONTROL  should  consider : 

i.  Sleep 

2.  Diet 

3.  Exercise 

4.  Clothing 

5.  Recreation  and  companionship. 

6.  Bathing 

7.  Occupation  and  associates. 

8.  Shelter 

9.  Habitat 

10.  Instincts,  habits,  ideals,  etc. 
This  list  is  not  in  logical  order  but  according  to  physio- 
logical rank  for  most  persons. 

SLEEP 

Rule  One  in  all  hygiene  is  —  Go  to  bed  early  enough  to 
awaken  of  one's  own  motion.  While  the  teacher,  like 
most  other  persons  including  even  u  the  independent 
farmer,*1  is  a  slave  to  clock  and  calendar,  he  has  control  of 
thr  hour  of  bedtime  (which  many  workers  in  other  lines 
do  not  have)  unless,  of  course,  he  teaches  also  in  evening 
school.  Every  one  should  go  to  bed  as  a  habit  so  early 
as  to  be  sure  not  to  need  an  alarm  clock.  Unfortunately, 
all  through  America  parents  are  accustomed  to  awaken 
children,  whereas  no  child  should  ever  be  awakened  unless 

137 


138   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

the  house  takes  fire !  This  habit  of  going  to  bed  so  late 
as  to  necessitate  being  awakened  is  ingrained  by  the 
childhood  training.  For  our  health,  we  should  rely  abso- 
lutely upon  the  periodicities  of  the  human  body  to  put  us 
to  sleep  and  to  wake  us  up. 

Again:  —  not  less  unfortunately,  schools  must  open  at 
8:30  or  9:00  a.  m.,  and  teachers  must  be  on  hand  thirty 
minutes  earlier.  Consequently,  very  many  teachers  are 
alarm  clock  bondsmen,  not  being  wise  enough  hygienically 
to  go  to  bed  earlier  and  still  earlier  if  necessary  until  one 
does  wake  up  early  enough  to  have  ample  time  to  dress 
and  eat  and  to  travel  unhurriedly  to  school. 

In  importance,  sleep  far  transcends  all  other  physio- 
logical functions, —  far.  "  Kind  Nature's  sweet  restorer, 
blessed  sleep."  Those  who  do  not  sleep  long,  soundly  and 
well  are  pitiable. 

Sleep  follows  some  very  interesting  laws  of  its  own. 
In  most  persons,  it  is  deepest  (that  is,  the  greatest  exter- 
nal disturbance  is  required  to  awaken  the  sleeper  to  con- 
sciousness) about  the  end  of  the  second  hour.  It  is 
quite  shallow  by  the  seventh  hour, —  the  "  beauty  sleep." 
In  some  others,  however,  it  becomes  deepest  by  the  end 
of  the  first  hour.  In  still  others,  it  is  very  light  until  the 
fifth  or  sixth  hour  when  it  becomes  heavy.  Some  per- 
sons, though  quite  healthy,  awaken  two  or  even  three 
times  in  the  night,  but  never  lie  awake.  This  means  that 
sleep  visits  them  in  waves  rather  than  in  one  long  tide. 

In  all  persons,  sleep  is  from  two  to  four  times  as,  deep 
in  midwinter  as  in  midsummer.  In  most  persons,  it  is 
considerably  deeper  in  midspring  than  in  midautumn.  In 
all  normal  persons  it  follows  the  rule  of  being  lightest  on 
hot  nights  and  heaviest  in  below  zero  weather.  It  is 
much  deeper  on  quiet  than  on  windy  nights.  It  is  several 
times  deeper  on  a  cloudy  night  than  when  indulged  in 
(as  it  often  should  be)  upon  a  sunny  afternoon. 


SLEEP  139 


CONDITIONS   FAVORABLE   TO   SLEEP 

In  order  to  sleep  well,  all  light  should  be  screened  and 
shaded  out  of  the  room, —  even  starlight, —  and  plenty  of 
fresh  outdoor  air  should  be  moving  in  it.  Better  still, 
sleep  outdoors  in  a  sleeping  porch.  (This  rule  holds  for 
all  persons  except  the  anemic  sedentary,  the  frail  ideo- 
motor,  some  invalids,  and  the  very  aged.) 

In  winter,  clothing  upon  the  bed  should  be  light  in 
weight  but  very  warm.  It  is  well  to  have  a  hot-water 
bottle  for  the  feet  (or  hot  bricks  or  cut  stone  or  the 
equivalent)  when  one  sleeps  outdoors  in  a  sleeping  porch. 
A  fur  robe  is  entirely  proper.  Some  persons  need  and 
should  wear  hoods  over  their  heads.  But  the  very  pur- 
pose of  such  a  porch  is  defeated  unless  it  can  be  kept  dark 
until  the  proper  time  to  rise.  That  purpose  is  to  estab- 
lish deep,  long  sleep. 

Most  persons  sleep  at  least  an  hour  too  little  and  keep 
awake  an  hour  too  much.  Try  getting  to  bed  an  hour 
earlier.  Better  still,  take  a  nap  of  an  hour,  changing  all 
one's  clothes,  every  afternoon. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  man  nervously  wrecked  from 
sorrow,  trouble,  toil  and  physical  pain  (too  blind  to  read 
or  to  see  human  faces),  kept  going  by  doses  of  codeine,  in 
despair  from  neuralgia  of  the  face  and  from  insomnia  at 
night, —  a  man  who  went  from  physician  to  physician  and 
grew  worse, — but  who  suddenly  set  out  to  change  his 
sleep  efforts.  He  gave  up  his  work,  went  to  bed  at  eleven 
o'clock  every  morning;  got  up  after  an  hour  or  so;  went 
to  bed  again  at  four  o'clock ;  got  up  after  a  while,  and  a 
third  time  daily  went  to  bed  at  the  proper  hour  of  nine- 
thirty  o'clock.  He  arose  at  six-thirty.  For  ten  days,  he 
drilled  himself  in  this  fashion  without  benefit.  Then  sud- 
denly he  found  himself  for  a  week  sleeping  heavily  from 
eleven  o'clock  to  one  and  even  two.     In  just  six  weeks, 


140   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

he  was  sleeping  one  hour  every  afternoon  and  eight 
straight  hours  every  night;  and  his  neuralgia  was  all 
gone,  never  to  return.  He  lost  his  place,  but  he  saved 
his  life ;  and  got  a  better  place.  Fortunately,  his  family 
humored  him  in  this  experiment,  caring  more  to  have  the 
head  of  the  house  get  well  in  any  way  whatever  than  to 
pursue  the  foolish  American  notion  of  "  one  sleep  a  day, 
and  only  at  night  then,"  as  a  universal  law. 

Truth  is  that  the  sleep-requirements  of  men  are  very 
much  like  those  of  dogs,  of  cats,  and  of  cattle ;  not  like 
those  of  horses.  The  dog  sleeps,  wakes  and  runs ;  eats, 
sleeps,  wakes  and  runs  some  more ;  his  natural  inclination 
is  to  repeat  the  cycle  three  or  four  times  daily.  The  nat- 
ural inclination  of  man  when  freed  from  the  chains  of 
civilization  is  to  have  a  three-cycle  day ;  but  he  gets  on 
beautifully  with  a  two-cycle  day,  and  usually  well  enough 
with  one  long  sleep  in  the  dark. 

The  way  to  stay  out  of  a  coffin  is  to  stay  longer  in  bed. 

Of  course,  there  are  exceptions.  Now  and  then  a  man 
sleeps  too  long  and  stays  abed  after  perfectly  awaking. 
The  rule  is  to  get  up  as  soon  as  one  is  awake.  Awaken- 
ing takes  various  lengths  of  time  for  various  persons ; 
from  three  to  fifteen  minutes  for  healthy  persons. 

Any  man  or  woman  who  finds  himself  taking  his  morn- 
ing bath  without  being  aware  that  he  (or  she)  made  any 
effort  to  get  up  may  consider  this  as  the  finest  evidence 
of  being  delightfully  well.  It  should  happen  six  days  in 
seven  in  the  life  of  every  man  and  woman.  An  occa- 
sional need  to  rouse  oneself  to  get  up  does  no  harm  to 
the  person  provided  that  he  is  generally  down  to  break- 
fast before  realizing  that  a  new  day  has  begun. 

A  good  deep  mattress ;  nice,  quiet  springs ;  brass  bed- 
stead ;  and  eiderdown  quilt ;  none  of  these  is  essential  to 
good  sleep.  A  healthy  person  muscularly  fatigued  can 
make  a  good  night  of  it  upon  a  canvas  cot. 


SLEEP  141 

It  is  disadvantageous  for  two  women  teachers  to 
occupy  the  same  room  and  wholly  undesirable  for  them  to 
occupy  the  same  bed  at  night  —  even  for  twin  sisters. 
Fir  better,  the  7'x  10'  hall  bedroom  for  one  than  the 
14'x  16'  first  story  for  two  unless  this  front  room  has  an 
alcove  and  wall  space  for  two  three-quarters  beds. 

Shut  out  drafts  with  screens,  shawls,  or  draperies.  By 
all  means,  close  the  hot  air  register.  Never  use  a  gas 
stove  in  a  bedroom  within  an  hour  of  going  to  bed;  the 
free  carbon  monoxide  is  a  direct  enemy  of  the  nasal  and 
king  membranes. 

In  order  to  induce  sleep,  many  teachers  find  it  bene- 
ficial to  take  an  evening  walk  about  an  hour  before  bed- 
time. It  should  not  be  too  long,  for  its  main  purpose  is 
simply  to  freshen  the  blood  and  quicken  the  respiration. 

Men  teachers  who  find  it  necessary  to  smoke  a  cigar  or 
pipe  just  before  going  to  bed  should  consult  a  competent 
family  physician  not  less  than  fifty  years  old  as  to  his 
experience  with  neurasthenes  who  smoke  tobacco  just 
before  going  to  bed. 

A  case  in  point  was  in  Paris.  The  patient  was  fifty- 
four  years  of  age.  He  reported  that  he  could  not  sleep 
unless  he  smoked  for  an  hour  or  so  before  retiring.  This 
man  smoked  outdoors.  He  had  insomnia  and  heart  pal- 
pitation at  this  stage  but  was  of  good  weight.  He  was 
advised  not  to  smoke  after  seven  o'clock  and  to  get  into 
bed  by  nine-thirty.  But  he  gravely  protested.  Seven 
months  later,  he  was  dead  in  total  nervous  collapse, 
not  caused,  of  course,  by  the  smoking  but  in  no  way 
cured  by  it. 

Another  case  was  that  of  one  of  the  most  famous  of 
American  educators.  He  had  a  slight  attack  of  paralysis 
and  limped  accordingly  with  one  foot.  He  took  to  drink- 
ing one  cup  of  coffee  at  eleven-thirty  every  night  as  a 
night  cap,  a  sleep  wooer,  a  bracer  against  insomnia.     Five 


142   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

months  after  beginning  this  habit,  a  second  stroke  carried 
him  away.  He  was  then  sixty  years  of  age ;  body  coeffi- 
cient at  death  2.6. 

Nicotine  and  caffeine  interfere  with  sleep  more  than 
alcohol  does.  No  drug  whatever  should  ever  be  taken  by 
a  working  teacher  after  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  not 
even  chocolate.  Also,  it  is  very  objectionable  to  eat 
candy,  which  seriously  interferes  with  all  sleep  of  adults 
by  overloading  the  liver  and  kidneys  with  the  unnecessary 
duty  of  secreting  glycogen. 

There  are  many  pitfalls  and  snares  into  invalidism. 
Half  of  them  offer  temptations  against  sleep.  Only  the 
child,  who  naturally  sleeps  so  well,  and  the  childish  con- 
sider an  hour  stolen  from  sleep  really  gained.  The  wise 
know  that  it  may  be  paid  for  many  times  over. 

MIND  AND  BRAIN   TISSUE 

Memory  is  a  function  of  brain  tissue.  The  psycholo- 
gists give  a  score  of  rules  to  improve  memory.  The 
physiologist  has  one :  sound  sleep  and  plenty  of  it  revives 
tissue.  j     1 

Judgment  is  a  function  of  brain-tissue.  The  psycholo- 
gists are  wise  enough  to  understand  that  they  can  develop 
no  rules  to  improve  judgment.  The  physiologist  has  one 
rule :  —  sound  sleep  quiets  and  feeds  the  cells  that  think. 

Teachers  who  desire  good  memories  and  good  judg- 
ment will  give  their  bodies  plenty  of  sleep. 

WAKEFULNESS  OR    INSOMNIA 

As  for  those  teachers  who  have  already  developed  more 
or  less  tendency  to  wakefulness  when  they  should  be 
asleep,  but  who  seriously  desire  to  remedy  the  situation 
and  are  willing  to  do  much  in  order  to  secure  sound 


SLEEP 


143 


sleep,  the  first  recommendation  of  any  hygienist  should 
be,  of  course,  that  they  should  visit  a  competent  physician 
for  diagnosis  and  treatment.  Insomnia  of  any  extent  or 
kind  is  a  pathological  symptom.  Self -administered 
changes  of  regimen  seldom  do  any  good  and  self- 
administered  doses  of  drugs  generally  do  some  harm. 

The  suggestions  that  follow  are  meant  solely  for  teach- 
ers who  find  themselves  wakeful  once  in  a  while, —  who 
generally  sleep  well.  Even  good  sleepers  sometimes  get 
out  of  step  as  it  were  and  cannot  sleep. 

There  are  many  varieties  of  these  simple  cases. 

One  variety  find  that  they  have  slept  perhaps  an  hour 
or  two;  wake  up;  and  cannot  go  to  sleep  again.  They 
roll  and  toss  for  hours.  The  trouble  perhaps  is  a  noc- 
turnal heightened  consciousness. 

Sometimes,  a  bowl  of  crackers  and  warm  milk  solves 
the  problem.  There  are  various  reasons  why.  The  busi- 
ness of  going  to  the  pantry  and  getting  the  supplies  and 
of  warming  up  the  milk  is  part  of  the  explanation.  Im- 
mediately upon  getting  to  bed  again,  sleep  comes. 

Sometimes,  getting  up  and  taking  five  or  ten  minutes  of 
light  calisthenics  with  strong  exhalations  of  the  breath 
works  the  miracle  of  inducing  sleep. 

The  milder  business  of  muscular  exercise  of  hands  and 
feet  and  trunk  in  bed  may  serve  the  purpose. 

Trying  to  read  oneself  to  sleep;  smoking;  taking  a 
drink  of  alcoholic  stimulant ;  eating  candy ;  counting  to 
1,000  or  more:  —  not  one  of  these  is  physiologically  cor- 
rect or  likely  to  be  beneficial.  Often,  they  make  the 
situation  worse. 

Another  variety  find  that,  much  to  their  surprise,  they 
do  not  go  to  sleep  as  usual  at  once  after  getting  to  bed. 
An  hour  passes,  and  they  are  more  wakeful  than  ever. 
Sometimes,  a  warm  bath  (990)  helps  such  a  person. 

When  the  wakefulness  is  due  to  overeating  or  to  an 


144   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

exceptionally  emotional  evening,  it  is  sometimes  helpful  to 
dress  and  go  for  a  walk  in  the  fresh  air. 

It  is  well  to  remember  that  a  person  who  has  the  habit 
of  going  to  bed  at  10  o'clock  is  not  likely  upon  going  to 
bed  at  9  o'clock  to  get  to  sleep  the  first  or  second  or  even 
third  night  even  as  early  as  10  o'clock,  for  the  body  is 
not  used  to  go  to  sleep  until  the  habitual  fatigue  pressure 
has  been  set  up.  Sometimes,  such  persons  do  well  to  eat 
an  apple  or  an  orange. 

A  third  variety  of  the  wakeful  are  those  who  after 
sleeping  (say)  five  or  six  hours  wake  up  two  or  three 
hours  too  early.     This  is  very  unpleasant. 

Often,  a  pint  of  not  too  cold  water  solves  the  problem. 

Sometimes,  ducking  and  holding  the  head  in  a  pail  of 
cold  water  until  the  skin  is  thoroughly  stimulated  solves 
the  problem.  Unfortunately  women  with  their  long  hair 
cannot  very  well  practise  this  mode  of  relief.  They  can, 
however,  apply  a  towel  wet  with  cold  water  at  the  neck 
and  base  of  the  skull  and  may  derive  immediate  benefit. 

Any  person  who  is  occasionally  wakeful  does  well  to 
feel  the  top  of  his  head  all  over  with  the  palm  of  his 
hand  in  order  to  discover  whether  or  not  any  locality  is 
notably  hot.  If  so,  that  locality  needs  to  be  cooled  down 
with  a  cold  compress. 

Also,  it  is  profitable  to  feel  the  feet  to  discover  whether 
they  are  cold  or  not. 

A  hot  head  and  cold  feet  should  wake  anyone  up. 
Soak  the  feet  for  ten  minutes,  if  necessary,  in  hot  water ; 
and  treat  the  head  with  cold  water. 

Some  cases  of  occasional  wakefulness  are  cured  by 
having  their  backs  well  rubbed  by  some  other  person  with 
a  rough  towel  while  they  are  lying  face  down  on  their 
beds.  Such  relief,  of  course,  is  available  only  to  those 
who  live  at  home. 

Many  a  victim  of  occasional  wakefulness  feels  for  half 


SLEEP  145 

a  day  ahead  that  he  will  have  a  poor  night  of  it.  Almost 
every  such  case  is  quickly  curable  by  afternoon  rest  with 
or  without  sleep  and  evenings  of  social  amusement  away 
from  the  place  where  one  sleeps. 

Still  another  mode  of  relief  to  such  a  victim  is  a  week- 
end in  another  city  or  village  or  even  in  a  hotel  or  at  the 
home  of  a  neighbor. 

Generally  the  teacher  who  is  a  victim  of  occasional 
wakefulness  suffers 

(a)  On  Friday  or  Sunday  night. 

(b)  On  the  day  before  an  examination  or  exhibition. 

(c)  After  some  great  excitement. 

This  is  more  or  less  according  to  the  human  lot.  It  has 
something  to  do  with  temperament. 

It  is  far  more  serious  to  suffer  from  wakefulness  with- 
out such  causes  than  to  suffer  from  wakefulness  with 
them.  The  man  or  woman  who  wakes  up  or  stays  awake 
and  cannot  imagine  why  and  who  finds  himself  (or  her- 
repeating  this  should  get  the  advice  of  one  whose 
business  it  is  to  cure  diseases,  for  frequent  or  permanent 
insomnia  is  itself  a  disease  and  leads  to  other  diseases. 
An  illness  with  no  ascertainable  cause  may  baffle  even  an 
rt  doctor. 

Heightened  consciousness,  hysteria,  neurasthenia  (so- 
called),  fevers,  other  maladies,  and  insanity,  all  begin 
with  wakefulness  that  the  victim  cannot  understand. 
This  symptom  requires  interpretation  in  connection  with 
other  symptoms  that  only  a  physician  knows  how  to  read. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
DIET 

LESS  important  than  sleep  but  far  more  generally  and 
frequently  discussed  (as  it  should  not  be)  is  diet. 
Properly  considered,  this  topic  should  include 
i.  Fresh  air, 

2.  Drink,  and 

3.  Food. 

These  three  are  the  builders  and  rebuilders  of  the  body. 

It  is  far  more  important  to  breathe  well  than  to  drink 
fresh  water  and  pure  milk. 

It  is  far  more  important  to  drink  water  and  milk  than 
to  eat  foods  of  the  right  kind,  properly  prepared  for  the 
table. 

Food  as  diet  is  much  less  important  than  water  and  air. 

But  convenience  of  treatment  and  common  custom 
place  the  topic  of  fresh  air  with  exercise  and  place  that 
of  drink  after  food;  and  they  are  so  placed  here  accord- 
ingly. 

The  essential  features  of  a  proper  diet  for  the  teacher 
who  is  an  adult  are  several.  Since  all  are  essential,  no 
one  of  them  is  more  important  than  any  other.  The 
order  in  which  they  are  stated  is,  therefore,  immaterial. 

1.  For  the  maintenance  of  good  health  or  for  its  resto- 
ration, it  is  essential  that  the  body  coefficient  shall  be  put 
and  kept  within  the  normal  limits  of  the  sex,  age,  race 
and  temperament  of  the  individual  concerned.  It  is 
absurd  to  assert  that  these  normal  limits  of  light  and 
heavy  weights  in  proportion  to  the  height  of  one  and  all 

146 


DIET  147 

shall  be  the  same  or  even  nearly  the  same.  According  to 
age,  race  and  temperament,  the  body  coefficient  of  the 
various  adult  individuals  who  are  well  will  range  all  the 
way  from  1.90  to  2.75.  This  permits  a  woman  of  fifty 
years  of  the  Saxon  stock  and  muscular  motor  tempera- 
ment, height  5  feet  7  inches  to  weigh  up  to  185  pounds ; 
and  it  permits  a  woman  of  twenty  years  of  Norman 
French  stock,  ideo-motor  temperament,  same  height,  to 
weigh  down  to  127  pounds.  (This  allows  for  ordinary 
indoor  attire.) 

To  get  within  and  stay  within  the  proper  ranges,  one 
needs  to  eat  amounts  of  food  definitely  ascertainable  by 
chemical  standards.  These  foods  will  have  definite 
values.  Potluck  in  this  respect  has  been  relegated  to  the 
barbarism  of  its  origin. 

The  food  needs  of  the  teachers  include  these  features, 
viz. — 

1 .  So  many  calories  of  heat. 

2.  So  many  grains  of  muscle  building  protein. 

3.  So  much  of  salts. 

4.  So  much  of  acids. 

The  state  of  the  weather,  of  the  winds,  of  sunlight,  and 
of  humidity  greatly  affect  the  caloric  requirement  as  also, 
of  course,  do  the  clothing  upon  the  body  and  the  health 
condition  itself.  In  a  general  way,  the  typical  woman 
teacher  requires  from  2,800  to  3,200  calories  a  day.  A 
fair  apportionment  of  calories  between  the  three  meals  is 
thi>,  viz. — 

450  breakfast 
600  lunch 
2,000  dinner  Total  3,050 

Or  this,  viz. — 

500  breakfast 
1,500  dinner 
1,000  supper  Total  3,000 


148   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

For  muscle  and  nerve  restoration,  the  daily  needs  of 
most  teachers  are  comparatively  light,  running  from  250 
to  400  grains.  It  makes  a  deal  of  difference  whether  the 
protein  intake  is  cereal  or  animal,  the  former  being  much 
less  nourishing.  Protein  builds  also  the  skin  and  flesh, 
and,  of  course,  the  internal  organs. 

Any  protein  can  be  torn  down  by  the  chemistry  of  di- 
gestion to  supply  heat;  but  it  is  a  wasteful  method  and 
distinctly  injurious  to  liver,  kidneys  and  bowels. 

For  teachers,  the  protein  intake  should  be  mainly  in 
the  first  and  third  meals  of  the  day. 

The  various  salts  required  should  constitute  perhaps 
one  per  cent  more.     These  are  essential  to  good  digestion. 

2.  It  is  essential  to  remember  that  the  alimentary  canal 
learns  how  to  digest  the  accustomed  foods  and  the  metab- 
olism also  has  uncanny  acquaintance  with  the  familiar 
output  of  such  foods  when  digested.  While  it  is  unob- 
jectionable to  experiment  with  new  foods  well  reported 
by  competent  dietitians  and  hygienists  and  unobjection- 
able always  to  simplify  one's  diet  (so  far  as  digestion  is 
concerned),  it  is  straight  science  to  know  that  health 
requires  continuity  of  diet  according  to  the  seasons. 
Many  and  many  a  person  declines  into  serious  indigestion 
by  indiscreet  consumption  of  foods  with  which  the  ali- 
mentary canal  does  not  know  how  to  operate. 

It  is  this  which  explains  the  distaste  of  Middle  West- 
erners for  the  seafoods  of  the  Atlantic  Coast.  Of  course, 
they  can  learn  through  a  summer  how  to  digest  such 
foods,  but  to  change  at  once  from  cereals,  meats,  vege- 
tables and  fruits  to  fish,  shellfish,  crabs  and  lobsters  for 
the  main  dietary  is  to  invite  disgust  of  appetite  and  re- 
bellion of  the  stomach.  Many  a  city  man  experiences  a 
positive  revulsion  against  a  country  table.  Many  an 
American  cannot  stand  the  dietary  of  a  foreigner. 

For  a  teacher,  who  must  have  a  quiet  interior,  to  ex- 


DIET  I49 

periment  with  strange  concoctions  as  ten  o'clock  suppers 
is  doubly  wrong.  In  the  first  place,  the  ten  o'clock  supper 
rong;  and  in  the  second  place,  the  new  concoctions 
are  perilous.  What  is  a  strange  concoction  to  one  person 
may  be  perfectly  familiar  to  another.  Such  is  the  prin- 
ciple behind  the  saying, — "  What  is  one  man's  meat  is 
another  man's  poison." 

3.  Variety  within  narrow  limits  is  essential.  What  is 
variety  depends,  of  course,  upon  the  individual.  But  too 
narrow  a  diet  is  very  undesirable ;  too  wide  a  variety  over- 
taxes the  digestive  ingenuity. 

Four  dishes  for  breakfast,  and  six  or  seven  for  each 
of  the  other  two  meals  are  enough  for  most  teachers. 
Analyzed,  even  four  dishes  generally  mean  a  dozen  differ- 
ent varieties  of  food,  as  seen  in  this  simple  menu  for  a 
winter  breakfast,  viz. — 

1 .  Oatmeal,  sugar  and  milk  and  cream ; 

2.  Lamb  chops  broiled,  lean  and  fat ; 

3.  Toast  and  butter; 

4.  Baked  apple,  sugar  and  milk  and  cream. 

This  meal  has  cereal  and  animal  proteins,  several  salts, 
milk  and  cream  casein  and  butter  fat,  and  fruit  acids. 
The  three  functions  of  the  liver  are  these,  viz. — 
1    Secreting  bile. 

2.  Excreting  uric  acid,  etc. 

3.  Storing  glycogen  (digested  sugar). 

The  physiological  interest  in  the  case  arises  from  the 
hat  the  liver  prefers  the  third  function  to  the  second, 
and  the  second  to  the  first,  and  secretes  bile  only  when  it 
has  nothing  else  to  do  and  is  itself  well.  An  overload  of 
sugar  (starches,  sugar,  etc.)  causes  the  liver  to  quit 
gathering  up  uric  acid  from  the  blood  and  making  bile. 
I  lie  result  may  he  I  kidney  disturbance  because  the  over- 
load of  uric  acid  ii  shifted  there,  or  **  biliousness  "  because 
the  bowels  have  no  bile  and  become  constipated,  or  "  rheu- 


150   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

matism,"  because  the  uric  acid  is  left  in  the  tissues ;  or 
any  combination  of  these  often  accompanied  by  head- 
aches, etc. 

The  way  to  treat  the  liver  with  respect  is  to  keep  down 
the  elements  in  food  and  drink  that  either  overload  or 
annoy  it. 

i.  Keep  the  sugar  supply  in  the  diet  down  below  the 
danger  point. 

2.  Eat  little  or  no  meat  that  contains  uric  acid.  (Beef 
is  the  worst  offender.  White  meat  of  chicken  and  pork 
have  but  little  uric  acid;  and  lamb  and  veal  are  usually 
quite  free.     Fresh  meat  is  far  better  than  old  meat.) 

3.  Do  not  antagonize  the  liver  with  drugs  in  the  guise 
of  drinks  and  smokes, —  alcohol,  tea,  coffee,  tobacco. 
Tea  is  especially  bad  for  the  liver. 

One  who  does  not  understand  the  internal  organs 
usually  imagines  that  the  liver  is  a  simple  organ  like  the 
lungs  or  kidneys  or  stomach.  It  is  as  complex  almost  as 
the  brain.  It  is  really  three  organs.  Annoying  the  liver 
is  an  easy  and  quick  mode  of  suicide. 

Quantitatively  measured,  3  heaping  tablespoon fuls  of 
oatmeal,  2  heaping  teaspoonfuls  of  sugar,  y2  pint  of  milk 
and  cream,  a  3  oz.  lamb  chop,  three  large  slices  of  toast, 
an  apple  2J/2  inches  in  diameter,  afford  from  400  to  600 
calories  of  heat  and  100  to  150  grains  of  protein. 

4.  It  is  essential  in  winter  for  teachers  to  get  an  ample 
daily  supply  of  hydrocarbons,  the  easiest  source  of  heat 
and  the  best  restorer  of  nerves.  Woman  teachers  char- 
acteristically undereat  such  foods  as  hot  meat  fats  from 
lamb,  mutton,  beef,  pork,  ham,  bacon  and  even  from 
chicken,  butter,  etc.  The  scientific  objection  to  well  done 
pastry  is  not  that  the  hydrocarbon  of  the  lard  in  it  is  not 
properly  cooked  for  eating  but  that  the  carbohydrates 
(starches)  of  the  flour  are  not  sufficiently  cooked. 

The  quickest  way  to  get  warm  quickly  from  food  in 


DIET  151 

winter  is  not  to  eat  candy  on  the  way  home  from  school 
or  in  the  evenings  but  to  eat  butter  or  peanut  butter  on 
toast  or  crackers ;  or  else  to  drink  two  cups  of  hot  water 
and  cream. 

A  moderate  amount  of  pure  sugar  in  cold  weather  does 
no  harm  at  all  but  an  immoderate  amount  persisted  in 
daily  will  often  work  as  much  havoc  as  whiskey  or  strong 
tea,  though  in  a  very  different  way. 

5.  It  is  essential  to  treat  the  liver  with  respect.  The 
liver  is  the  last  great  organ  of  the  body  to  be  developed 
in  the  history  of  the  animal  man.  It  is  complicated  and 
may  be  easily  damaged  by  bad  diet.  It  performs  no  less 
than  three  distinct  and  essential  (not  merely  important) 
functions;  but  it  can  perform  them  only  when  the  diet 
and  the  drink  are  intwcent  of  harm  to  it. 

6.  It  is  essential  to  eat  live,  fresh  cells  in  at  least  two 
meals  a  day.  Pasteurized  city  milk  has  much  of  its  life 
killed  along  with  the  too  frequent  microbes  of  disease. 
There  are  live,  fresh  cells  in  these  articles  uncooked,  viz. — 


Eggs 

Celery 

Dates 

Milk 

Apples 

Figs 

Nuts 

Oranges 

Butter 

Lettuce 

Grapefruit 

Cheese 

Tomatoes 

Dried  prunes 

Peanuts 

There  are  no  live  cells  in  salt  or  sugar  or  the  patented 
table  sauces  and  dressings,  some  of  which  are  so  powerful 
that  they  will  kill  a  whole  stomachful  of  beneficent  live 
cells. 

Just  what  vitamens  are,  no  chemist  has  yet  discovered. 
That  they  are,  many  scientists  now  believe  because  of  the 
observed  and  verified  results.  Vitamens  appear  to  be 
present  richly  in  many  uncooked  foods  such  as  milk  and 
peanuts  and  thinly  surviving  in  slightly  cooked  meats  and 
in  soft  boiled  eggs. 

Any  person  who  can  influence  his  diet  by  making  sug- 


152   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

gestions  at  home  or  by  buying  meals  a  la  carte  at  res- 
taurants,—  in  other  words,  any  person  whose  meals  do  not 
happen  to  him  and  victimize  him  accordingly  would  do 
well  to  arrange  a  two  weeks'  program  of  meals  and  to 
keep  readjusting  it  according  to  weather,  season,  holidays, 
etc.  There  is  not  space  here  to  offer  a  course  of  1,095 
meals  for  a  year  or  even  21  meals  for  one  week.  Nor 
would  any  such  course  be  good  for  more  than  a  small 
fraction  of  persons  in  a  small  section  of  the  country  and 
then  only  for  the  city  or  rural  teachers.  Diet  is  per- 
sonal. 

Frequently,  patients  say  that  they  have  to  sit  a  long 
time  at  the  table  before  appetite  comes;  they  eat  a  little 
from  the  first  and  second  courses  on  principle.  Perhaps, 
when  the  meal  is  done  for  the  others  at  the  table,  they 
just  begin  to  feel  hungry.  In  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
habit  or  shame  leads  them  to  quit  when  the  rest  do ;  and 
unfortunately  for  their  health  and  strength. 

Taking  a  cup  of  hot  water  with  a  little  salt  in  it  a  half 
hour  before  eating,  lying  down  for  a  half  hour  before 
eating,  and  taking  a  ten  minute  walk  before  eating,  each 
may  help. 

Parents  who  know  nothing  of  human  physiology  and 
hygiene  and  consorts  who  do  not  understand  the  severity 
of  the  teacher's  job  often  reprove  those  whose  appetites 
come  slow  and  either  shame  or  order  them  to  leave  the 
table.  This  is  good  for  the  bank  accounts  of  sanitariums 
and  of  coffin-makers.  "  For  want  of  knowledge,  my  peo- 
ple perish,"  said  Isaiah  truthfully. 


MENUS 

Some  persons  like  to  know  the  menu  before  they  sit 
down  to  eat ;  others  like  surprises  within  the  limits  of  their 
tastes  and  experience ;  few  enjoy  experiments,  very  few. 


DIET  153 

A  good  Friday  evening  six  o'clock  dinner  for  a  city 
teacher,  woman  age  40  years,  sinewy  motor,  body  coeffi- 
cient _•  ,  m  April  damp  weather,  might  be  this,  viz. — 

1  i\  tato-celery-milk  hot  soup  (potage)  (not  too 
much),  (potato  well  cooked  beforehand;  milk  brought  to 
boil),  (alkaline  corrective  of  toxins  of  fatigue). 

2.  With  salted  crackers  or  cubes  of  well  toasted  bread 
in  the  soup. 

3.  Boiled  leg  of  lamb.     Peas  or  beans.     Carrots  or 
nips.     Rice  cooked  not  less  than  four  hours.     Soda 

biscuits  well  cooked.     Plenty  of  butter.     Jelly  or  marma- 
lade. 

4.  Salad  of  nuts,  apples,  fresh  lettuce  or  fresh  celery, 
oranges  and  grapes. 

5.  White  cake  (eggs  in  it).  Blanc  mange  with  milk 
and  cream. 

Time  to  eat, —  not  less  than  thirty  minutes. 

Total  intake  (not  counting  water  drunk  from  glass)  not 
less  than  one  full  quart,  and  preferably  one  and  one-half 
qua  r 

A  good  midwinter  school  lunch  for  a  middle-of-the 
week  day  of  a  strong,  healthy,  vital  corpulent  woman  of 
twenty-one  might  be  this,  viz. — 

1.  Half  a  pint  or  more  of  vegetable  stew  to  contain  at 
one  ounce  of  meat  with  potatoes,  parsnips,  onions, 

celery  and  tomatoes. 

2.  One  baked  apple  2l/2  inches  in  diameter. 

3.  Two  thick  slices  of  bread  with  butter  and  peanut 
butter. 

4.  Half  pint  of  ice  cream  made  with  cream  and  two 
large  cookies. 

5.  Glass  of  milk, —  not  less  than  half  pint. 
The  intake  should  be  at  least  one  quart. 

\  supper  for  a  delicate  ideo-motor  or  anemic  sedentary 
woman  of  thirty  years,  body  coefficient  175  (who  really 


154   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

should  not  be  teaching  over  three  and  one-half  hours  a 
day,  mornings  only)  in  the  autumn  on  an  early  week  day 
might  be  this,  viz. — 

i.  Saucer  of  sliced  oranges,  not  too  much  sugar,  sprin- 
kling only.  Cut  in  a  slice  also  of  grapefruit.  Pour  on 
also  a  tablespoon ful  of  grapejuice,  red. 

2.  A  proper  (2  oz.  or  more)  slice  of  roast  beef  to  in- 
clude a  well-browned  edge  and  some  fat  (area  2"x  6", 
thickness  54  inch).  Medium  roasted.  Potatoes  thor- 
oughly baked.  (Preferably  boiled  and  then  baked.) 
Egg-plant  fried.  Tomatoes  baked  in  crackers  and  but- 
ter.    Thin  slices  of  toast  well-buttered  (two  or  three). 

3.  Chocolate  pudding.  (Just  enough  chocolate  to 
flavor.)  Plenty  of  milk  and  cream.  Sprinkling  of  sugar. 
White  cake  made  with  eggs. 

4.  A  dish  of  salted  peanuts,  almonds,  pecans,  walnuts 
with  raisins  and  dates. 

The  intake  should  be  not  less  than  one  quart,  drinking 
water  not  included. 

7.  The  seventh  essential  in  diet  has  been  repeatedly 
stated  above. —  It  is  a  physiological  and  anatomical  sin  to 
insult  the  stomach,  by  forwarding  to  it  anything  less  than 
a  bolus  of  food,  and  this  bolus  should  not  be  within  $y2 
hours  of  prior  eating.  The  size  of  the  bolus  must  be 
sufficient  to  fill  the  stomach  comfortably  full  of  food,  not 
mere  fluid.  The  stomach  of  a  normal  adult  male  or  fe- 
male holds  from  one  to  three  quarts  of  food,  and  works 
best  at  about  one  and  a  half  quarts  for  the  median  aver- 
age of  persons.  At  the  same  height  and  weight  and  age 
and  of  the  same  race  and  temperament,  the  stomach  of  a 
woman  is  usually  larger  than  that  of  a  man ;  and  should 
be  so.  Unfortunately,  the  civilized,  city  woman  teacher 
usually  has  a  stomach  with  thin,  weak  walls,  and  hence 
cannot  always  take  a  full  bolus. 


DIET  155 


TOO    MANY    MEALS 

There  is  one  sure,  quick  way  to  get  a  mighty  fermenta- 
tion in  the  entire  alimentary  canal ;  this  is,  to  eat  a  little 
breakfast,  (that  is,  one  biscuit  and  a  cup  of  coffee)  ;  and 
a  snack  at  recess  (that  is,  a  ginger  cookie  and  two  figs) ; 
a  quick  lunch  (that  is,  a  ham  sandwich  and  a  cup  of 
tea)  ;  a  snack  at  four  o'clock  (that  is,  a  10  cent  ice  cream 
44  dope  "  on  the  way  home) ;  a  nice  little  dinner,  (that  is, 
beef  broth,  a  small  prism  of  beefsteak,  one  small  potato, 
two  crackers,  bread  pudding  and  cream,  after  dinner 
demitasse  of  coffee,  seven  chocolate  peppermints,  total 
Y\  quart)  ;  and  a  bedtime  stomach  teaser  consisting  of  % 
of  an  apple  pie  with  a  "  good  "  doughnut  that  mother 
made.  Just  two  days  of  this  should  set  any  self-respect- 
ing alimentary  canal  into  gaseous  rebellion.  There  are 
tens  of  thousands  of  stomachs  of  city  women  teachers  in 
active  eructation  from  such  dietaries,  which  are  helpful 
to  physicians  and  undertakers. 

8.  The  last  essential  is, —  When  not  feeling  well,  drink 
water  or  orange-juice  in  water,  and  eat  nothing.  (Or 
%  orange,    %  lemon  in  the  water.) 

Case.  The  man  had  been  ailing  for  three  weeks,  when 
his  alimentary  canal  at  last  rebelled.  He  had  exceed- 
ingly important  school  duties.  He  was  forty-five  years 
of  age,  with  the  many  duties  of  a  city  school  principal- 
>hip  and  teachers'  association  officer.  Time,  hot  weather, 
end  of  year.  His  very  mind  had  given  way  to  fear  lest  he 
could  not  get  through.  But  he  did  come  through  on  this 
regimen,  viz. — 

1  solid  food  for  five  days. 

Closed  and  locked  his  office  three  quarter-hour  periods 
daily  and  lay  down  on  the  floor.  (Nothing  else  to  lie 
down  on  there,  properly  so.)     Quieted  his  circulation. 


156    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Every  four  hours,  from  7  a.  m.  to  6  p.  m.,  he  drank 
well- watered  orange  or  grape  juice,  one  full  glass  each 
time. 

From  Monday  to  Saturday,  he  lost  six  pounds ;  but  on 
Saturday  his  interior  was  fit  for  decent  food  in  proper 
quantity,  and  he  was  well  though  weak.  No  medicine  of 
any  kind  was  taken.  The  following  year  this  man  ate 
three  meals  a  day,  total  five  quarts  of  food,  and  actually 
gained  twenty  pounds  by  quitting  the  many-small-meals- 
and-snacks-a-day  error. 


SOME   DIETETIC  DETAILS 

A  merely  fried  potato  is  unfit  to  eat.  A  potato,  first 
boiled  or  baked  and  then  fried,  is  excellent  food. 

The  white  potato  steadily  deteriorates  through  the  year. 
The  colder  it  is  kept, —  though  not  to  be  frozen, —  the 
less  it  deteriorates.  It  is  not  good  to  eat  in  quantity  after 
February.  Its  starch  is  steadily  being  made  over  as  food 
for  the  tubers  when  planted  in  the  spring.  The  older 
the  potato,  the  more  good  boiling  does  it.  Potatoes 
should  be  boiled,  baked  or  roasted  until  they  flake.  Well- 
cooked  potato  under-skin  is  good  food. 

Rice  cooked  for  four  hours  or  more  at  or  above  boil- 
ing temperature  is  good  food,  for  its  starches  have  thereby 
been  converted  into  diastase,  which  is  immediately  assim- 
ilable. There  are  good  hospitals  in  which  no  rice  is  given 
until  after  it  has  been  boiled  twenty-eight  hours,  when  it 
is  chemically  perfect  for  the  invalid's  stomach.  Raw 
rice,  that  is,  rice  cooked  less  than  four  hours,  is  ready  to 
ferment  in  the  human  stomach. 

The  less  that  cabbage  is  cooked,  the  better  it  is  for  hu- 
man eating.  Such  vegetables,  however,  as  parsnips  and 
carrots  should  be  cooked  until  soft,  no  more. 

The  best  part  of  any  bread  as  food  is,  of  course,  the 


DIET  157 

t.  Any  bread  is  better  for  being  toasted.  The  pur- 
of  cooking  yeast  dough  is  to  convert  its  starch  into 
-tase;  toasting  assists  greatly. 

Heavy  cake  is  characteristically  bad  for  the  health. 
Some  light  cake  is  very  good.  The  former  costs  the  di- 
on  more  to  break  it  up  into  chyme  and  chyle  than  it 
yields.  The  latter  generally  is  good  when  it  contains  no 
alum  or  free  soda.  Potatoes,  rice,  cake  and  pastry,  as  or- 
dinarily prepared  and  cooked,  contain  unresolved  starch, 
which  is  the  enemy  of  the  alimentary  canal  and  of  the 
The  vegetables  that  serve  as  filling  or  padding 
open  *ut  the  walls  and  give  the  juices  of  the  alimentary 
canal  a  chance  to  work. 

The  notion  that  some  day  the  members  of  the  human 
race  will  take  their  food  in  little  capsules  swallowed  with 
water  at  a  gulp  shows  total  ignorance  of  the  physical  as- 
pects of  digestion. 

In  general,  all  meat  should  be  well  done  but  not  over 
done.  In  general,  the  middle-aged  animals  have  the 
healthiest  meat.  In  general,  meat  eaters  should  beware 
of  ptomaines  and  uric  acid  as  the  possible  price  for  trying 
to  get  easily  assimilated  proteins  of  animals  and  fowls. 

There  are  thousands  of  dishes  known  to  good  cooks  of 
which  many  are  worth  eating,  some  indifferent,  some  bad. 
A  dish  arranged  by  a  cook  or  even  a  dietitian  who  does 
not  know  human  physiology  and  differential  diagnosis 
may  be  well  enough  for  a  hotel  or  for  the  convalescent 
ward  of  a  hospital;  but  though  it  may  average  well  ac- 
cording to  the  chemistry  of  food,  it  may  wreck  some 
ular  individual.  Bacon  and  corn  pone  together  are 
good  for  the  man  mountaineer  of  the  Appalachian  high- 
lands and  for  the  thinly  clad,  long-intestined  colored  field 
workers  of  the  South  in  cold  weather;  but  not  one  woman 
school  teacher  in  one  hundred  should  eat  such  a  dish  ex- 
cept perhaps  in  good  skating  weather  of  the  Christmas 


158   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

holidays,  after  actually  being  out  of  doors  on  the  ice  for 
hours. 

Prunes  in  gelatin  with  whipped  cream  are  a  staple  dish 
fit  for  most  persons ;  but  ice  sherbet  with  sugar  wafers 
is  an  amusement  for  the  end  of  a  meal  and  good  for  little 
else. 

Many  delicate  eaters  get  most  of  their  real  nourish- 
ment out  of  their  desserts.  The  Japanese  begin  their  din- 
ners with  desserts  and  end  them  with  soups,  which  would 
be  a  good  program  for  some  American  teachers. 

The  alimentary  canal  is  both  a  chemical  laboratory  and 
a  physical  machine.  Peristalsis  and  digestion  are  recip- 
rocal cause  and  effect.  The  digestion  promotes  the  ver- 
micular reflex;  and  the  peristalsis  moves  the  contents  of 
the  alimentary  canal  forward  for  further  digestion. 

The  mouth  insalivation  of  the  chewed  food  is  slightly 
alkaline;  the  stomach  works  with  the  food  contents 
slightly  acid ;  the  rest  of  the  process  in  the  duodenum  and 
upper  and  lower  bowel  is  all  accomplished  with  a  dis- 
tinctly alkaline  content.  All  the  process  requires  is  char- 
acteristic activity  of  each  part  of  the  alimentary  canal. 

Every  food  has  its  own  peculiarities,  its  values  and  its 
debits.  In  the  whole  process,  salt,  which  is  alkaline,  yields 
hydrochloric  acid  for  the  stomach  and  sodium  compounds 
for  the  bowels.  Hence  we  need  salt  in  most  meats,  espe- 
cially in  beef ;  and  also  there  should  be  some  salt  in  bread 
and  other  foods.  Moreover,  salt  used  in  the  cooking 
process  itself  plays  strange  pranks  with  the  chemical  re- 
sults. In  general,  salt  should  be  put  upon  foods  after 
cooking;  but  there  are  notable  exceptions  such  as  bread. 

Persons  who  use  much  salt  should  remember  that  salt 
is  distinctly  a  heart  stimulant.  The  blood  has  the  normal 
saltness  of  sea  water;  slightly  less  than  three  per  cent. 
When  the  blood  loses  all  saltness,  the  heart  quits  work. 
Salt  also  stimulates  the  kidneys  and  other  organs;  and 


DIET  159 

irritates  the  bladder.  We  need  just  enough  salt.  In  or- 
der not  to  err  seriously,  when  in  doubt,  the  safe  thing 
is  to  eat  rather  less  than  more.  Perverted  appetites  de- 
manding salt,  pepper,  pickles,  in  excess,  are  pathological 
symptoms. 

Vinegar,  lemons  and  grapefruit  all  have  sharp  acids 
that  when  taken  in  excess  interfere  with  bowel  digestion. 
For  the  typical  young  woman  who  teaches,  the  whole  of 
a  grapefruit  at  breakfast  is  excess  by  half. 

Eggs  are  most  digestible  when  soft,  boiled  or  poached. 
Raw  eggs  may  be  scarcely  digested  at  all,  serving  merely 
as  an  emollient  to  the  alimentary  canal  of  the  adult. 
Hard  boiled  eggs  are  difficult  to  digest  in  proportion 
to  the  length  of  being  boiled  after  becoming  hard;  that 
is,  after  the  albumen  has  solidified.  Eggs  fried  on  one 
side  are  more  digestible  than  fried  on  both  sides.  Scram- 
bled eggs,  not  burned  or  toasted,  are  good. 

The  yolk  is  slightly  more  nourishing  than  the  white  of 
cgg.  but  it  contains  sulphur,  which  may  make  trouble  for 
persons  over  forty  years  of  age.  Many  who  overeat  eggs 
have  facial  and  other  skin  eruptions.  The  alleged 
M  medicinal  "  value  of  sulphur  is  nil.  It  may  have  a 
place  in  the  pharmacopeia  when  prescribed  for  definite 
ailments  by  competent  physicians ;  but  as  a  general  prop- 
osition, the  person  who  has  disagreeable  results  from  eat- 
ing eggs  should  cease  to  eat  so  many. 

Fish,  strawberries  and  tomatoes,  one  and  all  are  harm- 
ful to  some  persons;  and  should  be  omitted  from  their 
dietaries. 

iaragus  is  capable  of  causing  severe  kidney  and 
bladder  pains,  being  an  excessive  diuretic. 

the  hundreds  of  fruits,  vegetables,  berries,  etc.,  that 
may  be  classified  as  fresh  foods,  ripe  watermelon  is  per- 
haps the  least  likely  to  do  any  harm  or  any  good  except 
as  a  thir>t  quencher.     Canteloupes  and  similar  melons, 


160    THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

when  ripe,  are  appetizing  but  have  very  small  food  values. 
Pumpkins  and  squashes  stand  higher  in  the  dietetic  scale. 

Beans  and  peas  are  rich  in  protein,  very  nourishing,  dis- 
tinctly difficult  to  digest,  and  to  some  persons  injurious. 
They  require  far  more  cooking  than  they  usually  get. 

Oatmeal  should  boil  at  least  two  hours  in  the  evening 
before  and  should  then  be  warmed  over  unless  kept  in  a 
fireless  cooker. 

As  for  the  prepared,  ready-to-eat  breakfast  foods,  they 
differ  greatly  in  value.  Most  of  them  are  really  un- 
cooked. Wheat  is  far  better  than  corn,  and  corn  is  far 
better  than  rice  as  a  breakfast  cereal.  In  winter,  oatmeal 
four  days  in  the  week  is  a  wise  rule ;  take  other  cereals 
for  variety  the  remaining  mornings. 

An  excellent  breakfast  and  supper  dish,  of  course,  is 
toast-cream-milk-salt  hot  water,  made  as  follows,  viz. — 

Bread  Yz  inch  thin,  lightly  browned  on  each  side,  well- 
buttered. 

Boiling  water  with  salt  in  it  poured  over  this. 

Milk  warmed  to  150  degrees  Fahr.  poured  on  after  this. 
Milk  once  boiled  is  constipating. 

Cream  over  all. 

Add  a  poached  or  a  creamed  egg  if  desired.  (To 
cream  an  egg,  begin  cooking  it  in  cold  water.  Bring  wa- 
ter to  a  boil  rapidly.     Time  required  four  minutes.) 

As  to  fish,  salmon  contains  the  most  nourishment.  Of 
course,  therefore,  some  persons  find  it  indigestible. 
Spanish  mackerel  and  bluefish  are  high  grade  sea  foods. 
Canned  in  oil  and  cooked  in  butter,  cod,  herring,  sardines, 
tuna,  smelts,  whiting,  are  nourishing  foods.  The  fish  oil 
in  salmon  and  in  other  fish  similarly  rich  is  a  direct  nerve 
food.  Trout,  pickerel  and  eel  grade  high;  perch  and 
bass  not  so  high  as  foods.  Catfish  and  carp  are  only  fair 
as  foods. 


DIET  [6l 

Meats  are  of  various  values  and  debits  to  the  human 
body  according  to  their  nature,  to  their  condition,  to 
their  cooking,  and  to  the  amounts  ingested  at  a  meal  and 
daily.  Beef  may  be  dried  beef,  steak,  roast,  pot  roast, 
rare,  medium,  grilled,  with  or  without  gravy,  etc.,  etc. 
It  may  be  any  one  of  a  dozen  cuts;  bull,  steer,  cow, 
two  years  or  nine.  The  same  variety  is  true  of  mutton. 
ill  greater  variety  is  afforded  by  the  pig.  And  a 
far  greater  variety,  by  poultry.  As  to  game,  it  may  be 
any  one  of  a  hundred  varieties,  cooked  as  many  differ- 
ent ways. 

Broiling,  frying,  baking,  roasting,  grilling,  drying, 
basting, —  what  differences  these  indicate ! 

Rare  beef  from  a  healthy,  well-exercised,  grass  and 
corn- fed  two-year-old  steer  is  one  thing;  probably  good. 
Venison,  canned  and  overcooked,  is  very  different. 

SOME   CHARACTERISTIC   FOOD  VALUES 

DRINKS 

CALORIES 

Ordinary  cup  of  coffee  with  milk  and  sugar  50 
Cup  of  coffee,   1   teaspoon ful  of  sugar  and  2 

tablespoons  of  cream 100 

Cttp  or  small  glass  of  milk   100 

( )rdinary  cup  of  tea  with  milk  and  sugar 

Y2  teaspoon  ful  of  sugar  1  tablespoon  of  cream 

included   50 

<  >rdinary  cup  of  chocolate 150 

1  teaspoonful  of  sugar 25 

Cup  ]/i  milk  and  x/2  cream 100 

1  teaspoonful  of  prepared  cocoa  per  cup 50 

x/i  pint  of  creamy  milk  (top  of  bottle  of  milk)  200 
1  quart  of  standard  Jersey  milk   (not  pasteur- 
ized)       950 


1 62   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 


MEAT  DISHES 

Quantities    such   as   are    usually    served    in  popular 
restaurants  per  person  and  as  ordinarily  prepared. 

2  eggs,  poached  or  soft  boiled 280 

1  lamb  chop  (large) 450 

Ham  omelet    450 

Broiled  ham  J£  pound     500 

2  eggs  and  Y$  pound  bacon  . ., 600 

2  eggs,  fried  on  one  side,  and  %  pound  ham  . .  650 

Hamburger  steak  y2  pound,  fried  in  lard 500 

Beef  sirloin  with  mashed  potatoes   450—600 

Beef  stew  with  vegetables  y$  quart   . ., 400-500 

Liver,  bacon  and  potatoes  450-600 

Fried    sausage,    mashed    potatoes    and    griddle 

cakes  (3)  with  maple  syrup  and  butter  . .  500-800 

Corned  beef  hash     400 

Corned  beef  hash  on  toast  with  poached  egg  . .  600 


VEGETABLES   AND   FRUITS 

2  baked  potatoes  . ., 150-300 

Lima  beans  or  green  peas 50-100 

Baked  beans  (large  helping)  with  pork 500-600 

1  banana  (ripe)   50-150 

Baked  apple  (sugar  and  cream  omitted)   100 

8  stewed  prunes  (no  cream  or  milk) 150 

Most  vegetables  and  fruits  afford  but  few  calories. 


BREAD,    CAKE,   ETC. 

3  slices  buttered  toast 200-300 

Baked  spaghetti  or  macaroni 100-300 

2  crullers  or  doughnuts 100-200 


DIET  163 

Raisin  pie  (%)     300-400 

Pumpkin  pie  ( J4 )     150 

Mincemeat  pie  (  %  ) , 250 

Chocolate  cake  (chocolate  frosting)  200-400 

Rice  pudding  (cream  and  sugar  not  included)    100-150 

Cup  of  custard  made  with  egg 150-300 

3  griddle  cakes    (large)    wheat,  buckwheat  or 

corn  with  2  ounces  maple"  syrup  and  butter  250-400 
Breakfast  cereals  (milk  and  sugar  omitted)   . .    100-200 

Wheat  is  first  in  calories ;  next  corn ;  next  oats ;  lowest, 
rice  per  unit  of  weight  dry  before  cooking. 

The  calories  in  a  personal  service  of  fish,  oysters, 
soups,  jellies,  and  marmalades  differ  so  greatly  as  to 
make  general  data  almost  worthless.  Salmon  is  the  rich- 
est fish  on  the  general  market;  Spanish  mackerel  and 
bluefish  come  next ;  salmon  is  almost  as  heating  and 
nourishing  as  mutton ;  oysters  have  but  few  calories. 
Soups  run  from  clear  broths,  of  no  food  value,  merely 
appetizers,  to  stock  soups,  running  as  high  as  500  calories 
per  plate. 

Two  ounces  of  sugar  are  equal  to  1  ounce  of  butter 
in  calories  with  this  difference,  that  5  ounces  of  sugar 
in  all  forms  are  the  extreme  limit  that  even  a  healthy 
liver  can  manage  per  day  in  winter,  while  so  far  as  the 
internal  organs  are  concerned  1  pound  of  butter  taken 
in  the  course  of  a  day  would  be  harmless,  at  most  pro- 
ducing only  loose  motion  of  the  bowels.  Consequently, 
to  eat  j/2  pound  of  confectionery  in  an  evening,  as  some 
women  do,  is  very  harmful  to  the  internal  organs. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


DRINK 

THE   more   important   drinks   customarily   taken   in 
America  are  these,  viz. — 


City  water 

Rural  well  water 

Cistern     (or    rain)     water 

(usually  soft) 
Spring      water       (usually 

hard) 
Artificially  distilled  water 
Water,  carbonated 
Water,       sweetened       and 

flavored     with      ginger, 

roots,  syrups,  etc. 
Spring  water;  carbonated, 

flavored     with     orange, 

grape  juice,  lemon,  etc. 
Milk,    raw 
Milk,  pasteurized 
Milk,  boiled 


Milk,  skimmed 

Buttermilk 

Coffee  of  various  kinds  and 
strengths 

Coffee  with  milk  or  cream 

Coffee  with  sugar  (or  with 
both) 

Tea,    green,   black,    mixed 

Tea,  with  milk  or  cream, 
with  or  without  sugar 

Tea  with  lemon 

Tea  and  coffee,  hot  or  iced 

Cocoa 

Chocolate  variously  pre- 
pared 

Near-coffees  and  coffee- 
substitutes. 


In  view  of  the  known  characters  of  the  teachers  east, 
west,  north  and  south,  it  is  absurd  to  discuss  the  alco- 
holic stimulants, —  from  whiskey,  brandy,  rum  and  gin, 
from  beer  and  ale,  porter  and  stout,  to  the  thousands  of 
different  wines.  Few  teachers  drink  alcoholic  intoxicants. 
Moreover,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  whole  country 
is  going  for  national  prohibition,  efficiently  maintained. 
The  teacher  who  "  drinks  "  will  be  a  law-breaker. 

164 


DRINK  165 

The  strong  objections  to  all  stimulants  and  narcotics 
from  tea  and  tobacco  to  opium  and  alcohol  are  these 
two:  —  first,  they  are  flatterers  and  therefore  deceivers; 
second,  they  are  borrowers,  who  never  generously  supply 
or  honestly  repay,  promise-breakers  and  traitors. 

The  little  flatterer  (a  mild  cigarette)  and  the  great 
flatterer  (morphine  taken  hypodermically),  alike  sit  on 
the  rim  of  the  bowl  of  consciousness  and  tell  us  how  well 
we  are,  how  rich,  how  powerful,  how  admirable,  and  with 
what  wonderful  prospects!  They  silence  memory. 
They  quiet  action.  They  simplify  situations  and  destroy 
judgment.  But  they  are  by  no  means  equally  dangerous, 
partly  because  of  the  somesthesia  that  prevents  our  taking 
overdoses  of  some  of  them. 

The  little  borrower,  mild  chocolate,  comes  with  a  little 
gift  of  his  own  —  fat  for  the  nerves,  but  he  takes  a  loan 
of  the  future  all  the  same  and  a  side  loan  from  the  tissues, 
the  so-called  vital  reserve. 

Most  persons  drink  far  too  little  water,  pure  water. 
Six  pints  a  day  are  not  too  many  in  any  weather.  Two 
quarts  in  ordinary  autumn  and  spring  weather  serve  fairly 
well  for  the  muscular  motor.  In  hot  weather,  a  full 
gallon  a  day  is  all  right:  not  ice  water  but  pleasantly 
cool. 

Tradesmen  make  money  by  selling  foods ;  but  in 
America,  they  make  little  or  no  money  in  selling  pure 
water.  In  consequence,  foods  are  advertised  and  orally 
talked  up ;  but  all  the  foods  between  the  poles  of  the  earth 
are  not  so  important  for  physiological  consideration  as 
water.  We  could  well  spare  a  lot  of  time  from  the  con- 
sideration of  foods  to  the  consideration  of  our  drinks, 
ially  water  and  milk. 

Hot  water  before  breakfast  is  good  for  some  persons. 

water  at  meals  is  good  for  some.     Here  and  there  is 

a  person  who  cannot  drink  milk  even  after  fairly  trying 


166   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

to  do  so.     His  system  cannot  learn  how  to  assimilate  it. 

A  little  water  in  the  course  of  the  meal  does  no  harm 
but  washing  all  foods  down, —  slushing  water  down  with 
every  mouthful  in  gulps  of  swallowing, —  is  distinctly 
harmful.  Only  farmers  and  laborers,  mechanics  and 
soldiers,  living  out  of  doors,  can  stand  long  the  loss  of 
food-insalivation,  which  results  from  failing  to  chew 
one's  food  thoroughly  but  flooding  it  down  with  water 
instead. 

A  glass  of  water  half  an  hour  after  eating  is  desirable 
for  all.  Some  are  harmed,  others  benefited  by  a  glass  of 
water  upon  going  to  bed. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  teacher  with  rheumatism  and  an 
hypertrophied  heart,  greatly  overworked  and  often  by 
family  circumstances  robbed  of  sleep.  She  drank  several 
glasses  of  water  during  the  night ;  and  lived  twenty  years 
longer  than  her  several  physicians  told  her  family  to 
anticipate. 


THE   WATER   PSYCHOSIS 

Why  should  not  man  rejoice  in  water?  He  came  up 
out  of  the  primeval  seas  after  untold  aeons  of  life  in 
their  waters.  Salted  water  flows  in  his  veins  and 
lymphatics.  He  lived  in  water  when  in  the  womb  of  his 
mother  for  nine  dark  months.  The  life  of  man  is  in  the 
water  processes  of  his  body.  A  human  body  is  a  con- 
geries of  watercourses,  watermills,  water  laboratories,  and 
water  machines.  Our  joints,  our  eyes,  our  muscles  move 
in  water. 

To  think  much  upon  food  and  to  forget  water  is  to 
be  ignorant  and  thereby  to  invite  pain,  disease  and  death. 

A  few  persons  drink  enough  pure  water,  a  few.  Many 
persons  do  not  know  what  good  water  is.  Hard  water, 
full  of  lime  and  salts,  is  not  good  drinking  water. 


DRINK  167 

Nevertheless,  to  make  milk  palatable  and  good  for  some 
persons,  it  is  necessary  to  put  a  little  lime  or  magnesia 
into  it  as  a  corrective  of  the  acid  in  the  milk. 

It  has  been  said  that  a  man  today  is  the  beefsteak  or 
the  alum  bread  of  yesterday.  There  is  some  truth  in  this. 
It  may  be  said  that  a  man  today  is  the  crystal  water  spirit 
of  some  divine  hillside  spring  or  the  human  body  of  a 
friendly  and  beautiful  Alderney  cow.  Small  wonder  that 
the  Egyptians  worshipped  and  that  Hindoos  still  worship 
44  the  sacred  cow,"  or  that  the  Greeks  worshipped 
fountains.  Why  worship  teapots  or  coffee  cans  like  Rus- 
sians or  Turks?  Let  us  resort  rather  to  the  cool  woods 
and  to  the  green  fields  for  our  drinks  from  pure  streams, 
— when  chemists  certify  their  purity. 

There  was  a  case  when  an  entire  rural  family,  with  a 
teacher  as  boarder,  drew  all  their  drinking  water  from  a 
well  not  thirty  feet  deep  in  the  middle  of  the  barnyard 
where  they  kept  forty  head  of  horses  and  cattle.  For- 
tunately, however,  for  them  all.  they  preferred  tea  and 
coffee  at  their  meals  rather  than  water  1  Thereby,  they 
secured  boiled  water. 

Coffee  is  a  different  proposition  from  tea.  It  may  be 
that  chemically  considered,  caffein  is  the  same  as  thein; 
but  physiologically,  coffee  operates  in  different  ways  from 
tea.  It  is  an  antidote  for  tobacco  and  alcohol,  which 
tea  is  not.  It  delays  digestion;  but  it  does  not  irritate 
the  stomach  walls.  Coffee  is  prepared  in  two  different 
ways  in  America :  —  as  in  good  hotels  and  restaurants  and 
in  intelligent  homes,  and  as  in  quick  lunches  with  milk 
in  the  boiler,  kept  going  for  hours  on  end.  Black  coffee, 
without  milk,  not  boiled  too  long,  taken  with  but  little 
sugar  and  in  small  quantity  after  lunch  or  dinner  simply 
delays  digestion  and  makes  one  feel  comfortable  tem- 
porarily. Coffee  boiled  with  milk  for  an  hour  or  more 
at  breakfast  as  a  quick  stomach  filler,  two  cups,  puts 


168   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

insoluble  boiled  and  tanned  albumin  into  the  stomach  and 
delays  the  digestion  of  what  little  food  one  has  consumed. 
It  stands  by  one  for  about  two  hours,  and  then  lets  one 
drop  as  through  a  trap  door. 

Coffee  checks  the  restoration  of  tissue  after  the  tear- 
ing down  of  work;  it  prevents  larger  growth.  It  is, 
therefore,  much  worse  for  persons  with  body  coefficients 
under  2.20  than  for  those  with  body  coefficients  above  3, 
though  sometimes  it  makes  such  persons  lazy  and  self- 
gratulatory. 

To  a  strong,  healthy,  sane  man  or  woman,  who  sleeps 
nine  hours  a  day  and  eats  3,000  calories  of  good  food 
and  drinks  nothing  but  water  or  milk,  who  has  a  normal 
sanitary  environment  and  decent  work  hours,  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  "  hard  work,"  not  even  firing  a  locomotive, 
cutting  into  human  viscera,  mending  bad  plumbing  or 
teaching  the  children  of  aristocrats. 

A  little  green  tea  properly  prepared  is  one  thing;  a  lot 
of  black  tea  is  very  different. 

Tea  should  be  prepared  as  follows,  viz. :  — 

Put  some  in  a  cup;  pour  over  it  boiling  water,  leave 
ten  seconds,  pour  all  this  water  out.  Put  on  more  hot 
water.  Leave  for  two  or  three  minutes.  Pour  this  into 
a  hot  cup.  Throw  the  tea  leaves  away.  Since  tea  is 
prepared  by  being  trodden  upon  by  bare  feet,  there  is  no 
other  clean  method  to  prepare  tea  than  to  pour  off  the 
first  dirty  water,  as  every  Chinaman  and  every  properly 
informed  tea  importer  knows.  When  tea  is  left  to  boil 
ten  minutes,  one  gets  a  fearful  brew  of  tannic  acid,  which 
tans  the  stomach  and  angers  all  the  nerves.  Black  tea 
is  green  tea  partially  fermented  and  rotted  in  the  sun. 
It  is  used  only  by  those  ignorant  of  its  drug  effects  upon 
stomach  and  nerves  or  so  addicted  to  it  as  to  be  unable 
to  rid  themselves  of  the  habit. 


DRINK  169 


THE   VITAL   RESERVES 

Men  and  women  drink  tea  to  be  flattered  and  deceived 
and  to  have  their  appetites  reduced  and  thereby  to  save 
time,  effort,  foresight  and  expense.  Tea,  like  every  other 
drug,  calls  upon  the  vital  reserves,  which  for  practical 
purposes  may  be  considered  the  energies  in  those  parts  of 
us  not  yet  gone  crazy  or  starved  to  inactivity.  The  vital 
reserves  of  the  nerves  are  the  muscles,  the  marrow  of  the 
bones,  the  fatty-tissues,  the  alimentary  canal,  the  special 
organs.  The  vital  reserves  to  be  summoned  to  the  rescue 
of  an  exhausted  musculature  are  the  brain  and  spinal 
dord,  the  marrow  of  the  bones,  etc. 

The  big  borrowers  are  morphine,  chloral,  brandy. 

Teachers,  however,  are  used  by  only  a  few  of  these 
flatterers  and  borrowers, —  the  men  are  used  mostly  by 
coffee  and  tobacco,  the  women  by  coffee,  tea,  and  choco- 
late. It  would  be  grossly  incorrect  to  grade  these  as  fol- 
lows, viz. : 

Least  dangerous  —  chocolate. 

Most  dangerous  —  tea. 

The  cause  for  saying  this  is  in  the  old,  old  principles 
that  quality  and  quantity  and  time  and  number  make  vast 
differences.  Many  a  woman  who  complains  because  her 
father,  son,  brother,  or  husband  smokes  three  seven  cent 
cigars  a  day  and  drinks  two  ordinary  cups  of  coffee  and 
who  alleges  that  they  make  him  "  nervous  "  ( meaning  un- 
nerve him),  herself  drinks  ten  cups  of  coffee,  tea  and 
chocolate  every  twenty-four  hours  and  eats  a  cake  of 
sweet  chocolate  besides.  They  do  her  "  no  harm  " ;  on  the 
contrary,  she  says  that  they  brace  her  up  and  enable  her 
to  do  her  "  hard  housework."  The  truth  is  that  they 
make  her  housework  seem  hard. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
EXERCISE 

NINE  men  and  women  in  ten,  who  teach,  upon  being 
asked  by  some  one  else  how  to  improve  the  health 
will  answer, — "  Take  more  outdoor  exercise."  The  cause 
of  this  is  the  present  fashion.  A  century  and  a  half  ago, 
such  men  would  have  replied,  "  Why,  let  the  barber  draw 
your  blood !  "  Four  centuries  ago,  they  would  have  re- 
plied, "  Stay  indoors  nights !  " 

When  commented  upon,  the  person  who  urges  outdoor 
exercise  as  the  sure  means  of  improving  the  health  and 
strength  of  some  one  else  has  quite  an  argument.  This 
runs  about  as  follows,  viz., 

1.  Outdoor  exercise  causes  muscle  waste,  and  hunger 
follows ;  it  freshens  the  blood  with  oxygen,  and  the  spirit 
brightens. 

2.  Hunger  causes  appetite  and  increases  the  consump- 
tion of  food.  An  active  day  induces  fatigue  and  good 
sleep  at  night. 

3.  Therefore,  in  order  to  eat  and  to  sleep  well,  take 
outdoor  exercise. 

There  are  several  difficulties  with  this  as  the  regimen 
to  improve  health. 

1.  For  an  invalid  or  for  a  very  tired  person  or  for  one 
with  shattered  nerves,  more  exercise,  whether  indoors  or 
outdoors,  is  likely  to  prove  the  straw  that  breaks  the 
camel's  back. 

2.  Those  who  seem  to  need  outdoor  exercise  are 
usually  those  who  do  carry  a  very  large  amount  of  seden- 

170 


EXERCISE  171 

tary  indoor  work.  To  give  them  still  more  work  means 
advising  them  to  burn  the  candle  of  life  at  both  ends. 

3.  Even  muscularly  strong  persons  disinclined  to  suf- 
ficient exercise  usually  upon  examination  are  found  to 
have  some  positive  defect  or  deficiency  unknown  to  them- 
selves that  is  the  true  cause  of  this  disinclination.  To 
ask  such  to  exercise  more  is  to  ask  them  to  commit  sui- 
cide. 

Many  cases  of  each  of  these  three  kinds  rush  into 
memory  demanding  statement.  One  illustrating  the  third 
kind  must  serve  here. 

She  was  a  young  woman  of  twenty  years,  good  weight. 
Dutch-Danish  stock,  muscularly  strong,  alert,  persistent, 
but  commonly  accounted  u  lazy."  She  could  work  quietly 
and  steadily  all  day  indoors ;  —  teach,  sew,  knit,  cook, 
sweep.  She  was  a  fair  but  a  slow  walker.  Examination 
showed  that  her  heart  went  oft"  beat,  and  that  there  was 
valvular  leakage.  One  three-set  tennis  game  or  a  winter 
afternoon  of  skating  might  have  easily  caused  her  death. 
She  was  advised  to  follow  her  own  inclinations  and  to  live 
low.  Three  years  later,  she  had  almost  no  heart  trouble. 
She  was  advised  to  keep  quiet.  One  year  later,  a  careful 
examination  indicated  that  the  valvular  leakage  no  longer 
existed :  —  she  was  well. 

Of  what  value,  then  is  outdoor  exercise?  Of  very 
great  value  to  most  persons  when  rightly  taken ;  but  first 
every  one  who  has  any  doubts  about  himself  should  be 
thoroughly  examined. 


BALANCED   HEALTH    TESTS 

All  this  has  been  worked  out  very  systematically  by 
experts  called  physiologists  and  pathologists  and  is  now 
upon  a  scientific  basis.  One  of  the  tables  involved  con- 
cerns age,  sex,  pulse  beat  and  blood  pressure.     It  is  too 


172   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

technical  for  full  presentation  here,  but  all  the  principles 
involved  are  clear,  definite  and  useful  to  any  intelligent 
person.     They  are  as  follows,  viz. — 

i.  The  older  one's  age,  the  lower  is  the  permissible 
range  of  maximum  and  minimum  of  pulse  beat  in  health 
and  strength  sufficient  for  outdoor  exercise. 

2.  The  older  one's  age,  the  higher  is  the  permissible 
range  of  maximum  and  minimum  of  blood  pressure  in 
health  and  strength  for  outdoor  exercise. 

3.  In  women,  the  pulse  beat  runs  higher  than  in  men. 

4.  In  women,  the  blood  pressure  runs  slightly  lower 
than  in  men. 

5.  The  higher  the  pulse  beat,  the  lower  relatively  should 
be  the  blood  pressure. 

6.  The  lower  the  pulse  beat,  the  higher  should  be  the 
blood  pressure. 

CASES 

By  exercise  is  meant  here,  long,  hard,  sustained  exer- 
cise. Almost  all  persons  benefit  by  brief,  mild  exercise. 
The  exceptions  need  medical  care. 

Woman  21  years  old.  Pulse  standing  80.  Arm  blood 
pressure  130.     Fit  for  exercise. 

Woman  21  years  old.  Pulse  standing  96.  Arm  blood 
pressure  160.     Not  fit  for  exercise. 

Woman  21  years  old.  Pulse  standing  52.  Arm  blood 
pressure  no.     Not  fit  for  exercise. 

Man  55  years  old.  Pulse  standing  65.  Arm  blood 
pressure  150.     Fit  for  exercise. 

Man  55  years  old.  Pulse  standing  84.  Arm  blood 
pressure  200.     Not  fit  for  exercise. 

Man  55  years  old.  Pulse  standing  at  50.  Arm  blood 
pressure  125.     Not  fit  for  exercise. 

Woman  36  years  old.  Pulse  standing  80.  Arm  blood 
pressure  128.     Fit  for  exercise. 


EXERCISE  17; 

Woman  36  years  old.     Pulse  standing  60.     Arm  blood 
pressure  145.     Fit  for  exercise. 


PULSES 

In  general,  the  range  of  a  good  pulse,  when  one  is 
standing  after  being  seated  for  fifteen  minutes,  is  from 
68  to  86;  but  when  the  blood  pressure  is  low  for  one's 
age,  a  higher  pulse  is  well  enough.  And  when  the  blood 
pressure  is  high,  a  lower  pulse  is  not  alarming.  A  pulse 
is  slowest  when  a  person  has  been  lying  down  for  several 
hours:  quickest,  after  fast  running  for  a  considerable 
distance.  It  may  vary  in  a  healthy  person  from  68  to 
(say)  100;  in  a  young  person,  even  higher.  Or  from  76, 
lying  down,  to  108,  after  running. 

BLOOD    PRESSURE 

To  take  the  blood  pressure,  requires  the  use  of  a  blood 
pressure  machine.  The  pressure  is  usually  taken  upon 
the  upper  arm,  left  or  right. 

The  cause  of  the  contrariety  of  pulse  and  blood  pres- 
sure in  health  is  that  when  the  arteries  are  hard  as  in 
arteriosclerosis,  the  heart  must  pump  hard  and  fast  to 
drive  the  blood  through.  Therefore,  a  slow,  steady  pulse 
shows  that  even  though  there  is  considerable  hardness  of 
the  walls  of  the  arteries,  the  heart  is  strong  and  quite  able 
to  sustain  the  load.  And  a  quick,  perhaps  even,  irregular 
pulse  with  a  low  blood  pressure,  shows  that  though  the 
heart  is  not  a  good  machine,  still  it  has  fine  support  in 
the  arteries.  In  either  case,  active,  vigorous  exercise  is 
far  more  likely  to  do  good  than  harm. 

Many  girls  and  some  boys  from  sixteen  years  on  have 
small  internal  organs,  especially  hearts.  In  some  cases, 
at  twenty  or  even  twenty-five  years  of  age,  they  disclose 


174   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

poor  internal  development.  In  a  few  cases,  they  never 
improve.  Such  persons  are  unlikely  to  reach  forty  or 
even  thirty  years  of  age,  for  they  are  sure  to  offer  but 
poor  resistance  to  disease  and  to  hard  work.  The  cause 
of  such  deficiency  was  probably  either  ( i )  poor  heredity, 
(2)  underfeeding,  (3)  some  children's  disease,  notori- 
ously scarlet  fever,  (4)  underexercise,  especially  too  little 
play»  (5)  Dad  sleeping  habits,  singly  or  in  some  unhappy 
combination.  After  twenty-one  years  of  age,  it  is  improb- 
able that  the  internal  conditions  can  be  remedied ;  yet  this 
is  possible  in  some  cases. 

With  these  several  limitations  and  exceptions  in  mind, 
all  the  rest  of  the  teachers  of  America  should  take  exer- 
cise every  day,  preferably  out  of  doors,  and  preferably  in 
the  main  in  plays  and  games. 


SWIMMING 

The  finest  of  all  exercises  for  any  normal  man  or 
woman  is  swimming  in  the  salt  ocean.  Of  course,  it  is 
best  to  go  swimming  with  others.  Many  counsels  have 
been  offered  against  staying  in  too  long:  but  what  is  too 
long  is  a  matter  of  personal  idiosyncrasy.  Fifteen  min- 
utes is  too  long  for  some :  and  three  hours,  twice  a  day, 
six  days  a  week,  is  not  too  long  for  others.  The  test  is 
simple.  So  long  as  one  is  warm  in  the  water,  and  when 
upon  coming  out  and  rubbing  down,  one  feels  a  strong 
pleasant  reaction,  one  has  not  stayed  in  too  long. 

Next  to  swimming  in  the  salt  sea  is  swimming  in  fresh 
water  that  is  not  too  cold. 

Third  is  swimming  in  a  gymnasium  pool. 

Swimming  is  the  perfect  exercise  for  every  healthy 
man,  woman  and  child,  teachers  included.  It  uses  every 
muscle,  while  the  water  sustains  the  weight.  It  develops 
wind.     It  increases  the  strength  of  the  internal  organs. 


EXERCISE  175 

Unquestionably,  salt  water  is  good  for  the  skin.  It  does 
no  harm  to  swallow  a  quart  of  it.  And  swimming  de- 
velops courage  and  persistence. 

The  water  psychosis  is  deep  in  the  body  of  every  human 
being.  The  man  and  woman  who  says  truthfully  to  him- 
self,— M  I  love  to  swim,"  has  returned  to  the  joys  of  the 
pristine  world  out  of  which  he  came. 

Rowing  and  canoeing  are  splendid  exercises.  No  one 
should  get  into  a  rowboat  or  canoe,  however,  who  does 
not  know  how  to  swim  well  enough  to  keep  above  water 
a  long  time  or  how  to  swim  well  enough  to  swim  ashore. 
Canoe  paddling  is  superior  to  rowing  for  body  develop- 
ment. 

BALL   GAMES 

Football,  baseball  and  basketball  are  good  games  for 
strong  men ;  but  not  good  games  for  many  women.  There 
are  several  considerable  dangers  in  them  to  women :  — 
1.  Breaking  the  long  clavicle.  2.  Breaking  the  front 
teeth.  3.  Wounding  the  internal  organs,  or  4,  the  mam- 
mary glands.  Golf,  however,  is  reasonably  safe  and  is 
a  good  game  for  any  adult.  Some  women  school  teach- 
ers do  play  golf  on  Saturdays. 

Tennis  is  debatable.  The  question  whether  a  woman 
school  teacher  should  play  it  turns  upon  her  own  par- 
ticular condition.  For  some  women,  tennis  is  good ;  for 
others,  it  is  bad;  for  still  others,  it  is  good  in  some 
weathers  and  not  otherwise.  Most  women  who  play 
tennis  play  too  long,  play  too  many  games  and  do  not  play 
hard  enough  when  they  are  playing;  but  there  are  many 
exceptions.  Also,  most  women,  when  they  take  strong 
exercise,  forcing  perspiration,  do  not  immediately  there- 
after take  a  mild  shower  bath  as  they  should  when  pos- 
sible. 

The  safe  rule  for  a  woman  in  doubt  whether  or  not  to 


176   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

play  tennis  is  not  to  play  the  game ;  this  opinion  is  from 
the  health  and  strength  point  of  view. 

There  are  some  internal  conditions,  often  found  in 
woman,  that  make  tennis  playing,  like  rope  skipping,  abso- 
lutely forbidden.  It  is  a  good  game  to  make  the  healthy 
and  strong  alert  and  vigorous.  It  is  no  game  to  restore 
an  invalid  or  a  convalescent  to  health  and  strength. 

There  are  a  score  of  run-around-the-ring  games  played 
by  groups,  most  of  which  are  all  right  for  most  teachers 
provided  that  they  do  not  play  them  too  long. 

OTHER   EXERCISES 

Horseback  riding  is  available  to  many  rural  teachers 
and  to  some  city  teachers.  It  is  a  fine  exercise  for  most 
men  and  for  some  women ;  —  far  superior  to  driving  an 
automobile  or  to  riding  in  an  automobile  or  to  driving  a 
team  of  horses  or  riding  in  a  phaeton.  It  is  a  pity  that 
the  motor  car  has  made  so  many  roads  unsafe  for  horse- 
back riders.  There  is  something  in  the  character  of 
horses  that  reacts  against  the  motor  cars.  Perhaps,  when 
the  aeroplane  is  perfected  and  reduced  in  price,  the  riding- 
horse  will  be  restored  to  his  appropriate  station  as  one  of 
the  three  good  animal  friends  of  man, —  the  dairy  cow, 
the  watchdog  and  the  riding-horse. 

Walking  outdoors  every  day  a  few  miles  and  on  holi- 
days five  to  ten  miles  is  good  exercise  for  most  women, 
but  not  for  all.  It  is  not  good  for  such  as  have  serious 
spinal  curvatures  or  short,  frail  limbs  and  heavy  bodies, 
or  for  very  slender  women  with  deficient  body  coefficients, 
or  for  those  with  weak  hearts.  Most  women  do  not 
walk  enough  in  the  open  air.  They  show  this  in  their 
complexions,  in  their  bodily  postures  when  seated,  in  their 
walk  itself  or  in  their  obvious  psychical  conditions.  A 
person  who  walks  much  and  who  has  learned  how  to 


EXERCISE  177 

walk  properly  for  a  particular  physique  and  temperament 
shows  to  the  discerning  the  signs  of  being  a  good  walker. 
The  hips  rotate  slightly  in  walking,  the  knees  give  a  little, 
the  feet  toe  straight  forward,  the  body  and  head  are  held 
strongly  but  not  straight  upright,  and  the  arms  swing  but 
not  too  much.  A  good,  quick  walker  gets  over  the  ground 
fast  without  much  effort. 

Seated  and  resting,  a  good  walker  who  is  not  ill  looks 
strong  and  vigorous ;  he  is  not  limp  or  lazy  in  appearance. 
He  has  a  good  neck  and  well  set  shoulders,  breathes  well, 
and  his  legs  and  arms  take  good  care  of  themselves  unself- 
consciously. 

Few  of  the  shoes  for  sale  in  America  are  good  walking 
shoes.  Such  shoes  should  have  four  characteristics :  — 
1.  The  instep  fits  up  into  the  arch  of  the  foot  snugly  and 
comfortably.  2.  There  is  abundance  of  room  for  foot 
and  toe  to  spread.  3.  The  sole  is  of  good  weight  and  yd 
pliable.  4.  The  heel  is  not  over  one  inch  high  and  is 
broad,  being  preferably  of  live  new  rubber. 

Indoor  exercises  are  very  numerous,  from  games  and 
plays  to  calisthenic  drills  and  work  upon  apparatus. 

Every  human  being  from  childhood  to  oldest  age  should 

take   some   setting-up   exercises   every   morning   before 

dressing  for  the  day.     Five  to  eight  minutes  are  enough. 

muscle  should  be  exercised  ;  —  fingers  and  toes  and 

scalp  included. 

me  persons  take  their  exercises  flat  on  their  beds, 
which  is  all  right. 

TESTS   OF   EXERCISES 

In  taking  these  exercises,  it  is  important  to  observe 
these  points,  viz. — 

1    To  move  every  muscle. 

2.  To  work  vigorously  the  neck  and  lungs. 


178   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

3.  To  exercise  the  soft  abdominal  muscles  thoroughly. 

It  is  profitable  to  remember  that  it  is  more  important  to 
expel  all  the  old  air  from  the  lungs  than  to  get  in  new 
air,  which  part  of  the  process  takes  care  of  itself. 

And  don't  forget  to  drink  one  or  two  glasses  of  water. 

Some  persons  use  y2  pound  or  1  pound  dumbbells  to 
advantage  when  doing  the  bedroom  exercises. 

There  is  a  fine  exercise  in  deep  breathing  that  has  been 
styled 

TAKING   SNUFF   WITH   THE   PRESIDENT 

According  to  the  report,  the  Army  surgeon-physician 
who  had  a  President  of  the  United  States  in  his  special 
charge  was  not  pleased  with  his  shallow  breathing. 
Therefore,  he  invented  this  exercise. 

Stand  erect.  Expel  all  the  air  from  the  lungs  by  vigor- 
ous deflation,  using  the  diaphragm  and  intercostal  muscles 
for  all  they  are  worth. 

Of  course,  even  a  deep  breather  takes  only  one  or  two 
deep  breaths  on  the  average  for  every  sixteen  inhalations. 


THE   FINGER  DANCE 

This  very  pretty  exercise  is  much  superior  to  its  title. 

Rise  upon  the  very  tiptoes. 

Stretch  the  arms  far  above  the  head,  somewhat  for- 
ward of  the  body. 

Shake  and  wave  the  fingers  and  hands  loosely  upon  the 
wrist;  and  continuously,  while  waving  the  fingers  and 
holding  the  body  on  tiptoe,  swing  and  sway  three-quarters 
of  the  circle  to  the  right,  around  to  the  left  and  back 
again  several  times. 

For  completely  loosening  the  shoulder-blades  under 
their  muscle  coverings  on  the  back,  no  other  exercise 
compares  with  this. 


EXERCISE  179 

GYMNASIUM    EXERCISES 

For  the  gymnasium,  both  men  and  women  do  well  to 
play  volley  ball. 

The  medicine  ball  is  good  for  strong  men. 

As  to  chest  weights,  the  Swedish  ladder,  the  rowing 
machine  and  other  apparatus,  these  should  be  employed 
according  to  the  differential  diagnosis.  Most  teachers 
have  too  weak  backs,  shoulders,  and  arms ;  especially  their 
backs.  They  can  hold  them  straight  by  effort ;  but  their 
backs  are  not  strong  enough  to  stay  straight  without 
effort.  Consequently,  in  the  gymnasium,  most  teachers 
need  work  for  the  back  muscles. 

Some  persons  who  publish  advice  to  teachers  say  much 
about  the  "  exercise  of  housework  "  and  about  the  "  exer- 
cises of  farming,  gardening,  and  animal  husbandry." 
More  teachers  have  been  injured  by  farm  work  while 
teaching  than  have  been  helped  physically  by  it. 

IS    HOUSEWORK    HYGIENIC? 

Could  one  select  the  particular  tasks  in  these  lines  that 
make  for  appetite,  for  physical  recreation  and  for  muscle^ 
building,  there  would  be  an  argument  for  each;  but 
housework  includes  much  that  hurts  the  health.  Of 
course,  the  vacuum  cleaner  gets  rid  of  the  dust  problem 
in  sweeping.  Making  toast  with  an  electric  toaster  does 
not  exhaust  muscle  and  nerve  and  takes  but  little  time. 
Moving  furniture  about  on  housecleaning  days  is  good 
for  all,  save  frail  persons.  But  shaking  down  a  furnace 
and*  taking  out  the  ashes,  highly  recommended  by  some 
persons  who  have  had  little  experience  in  doing  it  and 
know  but  little  of  the  typical  condition  of  the  throats  and 
lungs  of  teachers,  do  not  constitute  a  hygienic  exercise, 
though  they  may  be  temporary  expedients  in  economy. 


180   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Beating  rugs  and  carpets  outdoors  in  the  city  backyard 
or  upon  the  rural  lawn  never  yet  delayed  an  attack  of 
bronchitis  in  an  old  man  nor  a  headache  in  a  young 
woman. 

The  frail  man  who  teaches  in  a  high  school  gctsf  when 
hoeing  corn  upon  a  summer's  day,  a  case  of  sunstroke 
much  more  easily  than  the  husky  farmer  himself  who  has 
taken  him  for  a  summer  boarder. 

No  woman  who  has  a  baby  at  home  and  who  takes  care 
of  that  baby  nights  is  fit  to  teach  school  in  the  daytime. 
And  young  mothers  who  expect  their  teacher-husbands  to 
care  for  the  babies  at  night  may  be  saving  their  own 
lives,  but  they  are  wrecking  their  husband's  nerves. 
Truth  is  that  a  man  teacher,  his  wife  and  several  small 
children  constitute  a  family  unit  with  too  few  adults  to 
protect  the  health  of  the  two  parents. 

"  Worn  out  by  school  work  and  by  home  care  "  would 
be  the  truthful  epitaph  upon  the  tombstones  of  many 
teachers,  both  men  and  women. 

Few  physicians  marry  until  thirty  years  of  age,  or 
older.  Many  men  teachers  marry  at  less  than  twenty-five 
years  of  age.  The  two  professions  are  much  alike  in 
their  nervous  pull.  Law,  theology,  journalism,  engineer- 
ing, architecture,  business  itself ;  —  none  of  these  is  like 
teaching  in  throwing  very  heavy  burdens,  that  is,  social 
burdens  upon  the  nerves  of  young  persons.  Few  young 
lawyers  have  large  practices ;  few  young  preachers  have 
large  churches ;  few  young  business  men  run  large  stores 
and  factories.  But  many  young  teachers  operate  large 
schools  and  draw  salaries  too  small  to  keep  household 
servants,  even  were  such  available  singly.  Household 
servants  now  hunt  in  duets  and  trios ;  single  servants  are 
out  of  style.  When  possible,  most  teachers  should  find 
means  to  avoid  housecare  and  housework;  and  most  of 
them  should  not  try  to  do  heavy  muscular  farm  work  in 


EXERCISE  181 

the  summer.  The  man  who  ^oes  into  teaching  either 
should  choose  a  wife  of  marked  physical  health  and 
moral  courage  or  else  should  not  desire  to  establish  a 
large  family.  These  conditions  are  as  inseparable  from 
the  profession  itself  as  are  the  frequent  movings  of  the 
minister  of  the  modern  democratic  denominations  from 
parish  to  parish.  The  public  teacher  belongs  to  his 
school ;  this  is  first. 

Of  course,  in  some  family  households,  there  are  grand- 
parents, maiden  or  widowed  aunts  or  bachelor  uncles, 
who  greatly  relieve  the  young  parents  and  thereby  sim- 
plify the  problem  of  how  to  get  as  well  rested  at  home  as 
at  a  hotel  or  in  a  good  boarding  house.  In  such  house- 
holds, the  teacher-members,  who  bring  in  the  monthly 
incomes,  should,  of  course,  do  what  they  can  to  carry 
forward  the  household  work  provided  that  their  tasks  do 
not  reduce  their  school  efficiency.  This  is  both  private 
good  sense  and  public  duty. 

It  makes  some  women  happy  to  cook  flapjacks  for 
breakfast  and  to  bake  cakes  for  supper;  it  makes  some 
men  happy  to  broil  beefsteaks  any  time ;  and  it  fills  some 
men  with  a  joy  of  accomplishment  to  run  a  coat  of  fresh 
paint  over  the  dining  room  woodwork  and  floor.  These 
esthetic,  kinesthesiac  persons  should  be  encouraged  to 
amuse  themselves  at  housework.  They  really  play  when 
they  appear  to  work. 


DETERMINED    EXERCISE 

Exercise  means  a  "  shining  forth."  In  true  exercise, 
the  spirit  is  released.  Seldom  does  drudgery  help  the 
health ;  not  even  gymnasium  drudgery.  Yet  this  is  only 
a  general  truth ;  and  it  has  exceptions.  The  persons  who 
have  some  definite  muscular  weakness  (say)  of  the  periph- 
eral accessory  muscles  of  forearm  and  hand,  preventing 


182   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

good  handwriting,  hand  sewing  and  typewriting,  piano 
playing,  tennis  playing  and  handshaking,  should  take 
definite  exercises  to  strengthen  arms,  wrists  and  hands. 
It  may  be  years  before  there  is  an  adequate  response; 
but  usually  the  benefit  is  seen  in  a  few  weeks. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  young  man  teacher  with  a  fine 
mind  and  a  natural  disposition  to  teach.  He  slouched 
about  with  a  hangdog  look  and  was  slovenly  in  attire. 
Examination  showed  a  frail  and  lazy  neck  and  upper 
spinal  column.  His  head  hung  upon  his  strained,  elon- 
gated back  neck  muscles.  It  was  observed  when  he  read 
that  his  chin  choked  down  upon  his  collar  and  that  his 
carotid  arteries  were  compressed,  reducing  the  blood 
supply  to  his  head.  Before  his  class,  he  brightened  up 
doubtless  from  the  influence  of  the  adrenal  gland  secre- 
tions, released  under  the  stimulus  of  the  classroom  effort. 

He  lived  at  home  with  his  mother,  a  widow ;  and  he  did 
a  lot  of  work  there,  including  the  making  of  bread  and 
sweeping  the  floors.  The  problem  was  how  to  get  him  to 
hold  his  head  straight  and  to  make  his  carriage  conform 
with  his  excellent  character  and  ability.  He  considered 
the  various  head  rotations  and  other  movements  drudg- 
ery. Nevertheless,  being  anxious  to  please  the  school 
authorities,  he  set  out  to  endure  the  drudgery.  It  was 
nine  weeks  before  he  could  walk  unobserved  and  unself- 
consciously, with  his  head  erect.  It  was  twelve  weeks 
before  he  sat  and  read  with  his  head  back  and  his  book 
up.  But  he  won.  Incidentally,  he  had  gained  enough 
weight  to  show  a  body  coefficient  of  2.40,  which  was 
normal.  Also,  being  able  to  look  men  in  the  eye,  he 
became  much  more  influential  with  teachers  and  pupils. 
After  five  years  had  passed,  he  was  a  city  school  princi- 
pal. It  took  the  drudgery  of  physical  training  to  develop 
the  appearance  of  manliness  in  him. 


EXERCISE  183 


DAILY    PROGRAM    OF   EXERCISE 

It  is  a  common  question  as  to  how  much  time  anyone 
should  spend  in  definite  physical  exercise  daily.  Only 
individual  diagnosis  can  answer  this  question.  But  this 
in  general  makes  a  good  program  for  the  five  school 
days,  viz. — 

1.  Before  breakfast  8  to  10  minutes;  light  calisthenics 
in  one's  own  room. 

2.  Walk  one  mile  before  school. 

3.  Get  a  good  airing  for  5  to  10  minutes  in  midmorn- 
ing. 

4.  Do  likewise  at  noon. 

5.  Walk  one  mile  after  school. 

6.  Before  getting  to  bed,  either  walk  half  a  mile  or 
take  5  to  10  minutes  of  light  calisthenics  in  one's  room. 

7.  Take  100  deep  breaths  daily. 

On  Saturdays,  spend  at  least  three  hours  outdoors. 
On  Sundays,  spend  at  least  two  hours  outdoors. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
BATHING 

THE  arguments  about  bathing,  pro  and  con,  are  in 
general  amusing  instances  of  scissoring  without 
definite  issues  for  want  of  differential  diagnosis  of  the 
individuals  concerned,  of  the  kinds  of  baths  proposed  and 
of  the  seasons  of  the  year. 

GENERAL    RULE 

Take  300  baths  a  year. 

That  is,  omit  four  or  five  baths  a  month.  Otherwise 
bathe  daily.  Or  bathe  twice  a  day  in  very  warm  weather 
and  every  other  day  in  very  cold  weather. 

But  take  300  baths  a  year. 

There  are  almost  as  many  kinds  of  baths  as  there  are 
human  beings  to  take  them. 

The  tub  bath  is  the  most  common;  —  taken  at  night, 
hot.  Generally,  the  once-a-week,  hot  tub  bather  stays  in 
the  water  too  long,  uses  too  much  soap,  and  fails  to  rinse 
off  in  clear  water.  No  soap  should  be  left  either  on  the 
hair  of  the  head  or  upon  the  skin. 

It  is  undesirable  to  use  a  hot  bath,  save  for  definite 
therapeutic  effects.  It  does  quiet  the  nerves,  may  even 
cure  definite  local  pains,  and  in  some  persons  it  induces 
sleep.  But  it  is  exhausting  to  the  vitality  notwithstand- 
ing. 

The  warm  tub  bath  (960  to  ioo°)  taken  daily  in  the 
morning,  with  soap  used  locally  where  needed,  when  one 
stays  in  the  tub  not  over  ten  minutes,  and  rubs  down 
vigorously  with  a  crash  towel  is  less  objectionable.  It  is 
the  easy  and  lazy  bath. 

1S4 


BATHING  185 

The  cool  tub  bath  taken  daily  night  or  morning  (yo°  to 
95°)  *s  good  for  most  persons. 

Cold  tubs  (under  yo°)  are  seldom  good  for  anyone. 
Cool  and  cold  tank  swims  are  fine  for  all  save  invalids. 
The  exercise  keeps  up  the  body  heat.  Fifteen  minutes 
make  a  fair  limit.  Several  swims  a  week  are  good  for 
almost  anyone. 

Better  than  any  tub  bath  is  the  shower  bath,  beginning 
warm  and  ending  cold.  Time, —  two  to  five  minutes. 
Persons  with  weak  hearts  or  with  severe  neuralgia,  how- 
ever, should  stick  to  the  warm  tub  bath.  The  shower 
bath  is  especially  good  for  youth  and  for  young  men  and 
women. 

Not  many  persons  use  too  many  local  baths, —  as  for 
example  the  hot  foot  bath  or  the  cold  duck  in  a  pail  for  a 
headache. 

Local  applications  of  very  hot  water  upon  compresses 
of  cloths  are  highly  beneficial  for  inflamed  eyes,  facial 
neuralgia,  writer's  cramp,  colic  and  many  other  local 
troubles.  Though  hydrotherapy  has  a  substantial  basis 
of  experience  in  cures  and  in  relief,  it  is,  however,  not 
a  panacea. 

Quiet  sleeping  porches  and  variously  equipped  bath- 
rooms are  more  important  features  in  modern  scien- 
tifically provided  homes  than  even  kitchens,  and  are  far 
more  important  than  parlors  and  libraries. 

A  scientifically  provided  bathroom  has  these  features ; 
viz. — 

A  sanitary,  strong  flushing  water  closet,  white  enam- 
elled. 

A  shower  bath  in  the  corner. 

\  l)ig,  long  enamelled  tub  flush  with  the  floor. 

A  l>i£.  wide,  low  wash  basin  well  set  out  into  the  room. 
•  K*  tub. 
«rv  washcloth  should  be  washed  in  soap  and  hot 


186   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

water  every  day,  or  used  one  day  only  and  then  laid  aside 
for  the  laundry. 

Every  hair  brush  should  be  washed  in  soap  and  hot 
water  every  week. 

The  tooth  brush  (medium  or  soft  bristles)  should  be 
used  eight  minutes  a  day. 

The  soaps  used  should  have  little  or  no  free  alkali. 
There  are  several  good  soaps.  The  notion  that  one  may 
use  so  much  soap  as  actually  to  wash  the  oil  out  from 
the  oleaginous  pores  under  the  skin  has  just  this  much 
truth,  that  a  bad  soap  is  harsh  to  the  skin.  It  is  decidedly 
doubtful  whether  anyone  ever  did  cause  eczema  upon 
one's  face  by  using  too  much  good  soap  and  water;  but 
bad  soap  will  damage  the  skin.  Washing  often  is  no 
remedy  for  skin  troubles.  Seabathing,  however,  does 
help  many  skin  troubles.  The  safe  rule  is  to  consult  a 
good  physician  in  such  a  case. 

In  some  low  states  of  health,  one  should  not  take  either 
tub  or  shower  baths.  Few  persons  are  so  ill,  however, 
that  they  do  not  benefit  by  local  bathing,  part  by  part, 
until  the  whole  body  is  cleaned  and  refreshed.  For  a 
really  frail  person,  a  good  way  to  bathe  is  to  wet  thor- 
oughly an  entire  sheet  in  water  at  1050  to  no°  degrees 
and  to  wrap  this  closely  around  one  and  rub ;  then  take  a 
warm,  rough  towel  and  part  by  part  dry  the  body ;  neck, 
arms,  chest,  etc.,  etc.  One  may  do  this  comfortably 
when  seated  upon  a  chair. 

Many  persons  bathe  in  unventilated  bathrooms,  which 
is  very  bad.  They  stay  in  bathrooms  8'x  io'x  10'  three 
quarters  of  an  hour  and  then  wonder  why  their  heads 
ache,  and  why  they  feel  "  punk  "  or  "  stuffy."  Fresh  air 
for  the  lungs,  blood  and  body  is  more  important  even 
than  a  clean  skin ;  it  is  even  more  a  necessary  of  life  than 
water;  we  need  fresh  air  sixteen  times  a  minute.     During 


BATHING  187 

the  bath,  there  should  be  ventilation  by  the  window  or 
otherwise. 

Many  persons  bathe  in  bathrooms  kept  too  warm  in 
winter.     Seventy  degrees  is  a  fair  temperature. 

There  was  a  case  where  a  person  who  was  frail  steadily 
grew  worse.  Persistent  and  frequently  renewed  inquiries 
by  the  physician  failed  to  disclose  the  cause.  Finally,  he 
guessed  right.  This  teacher  invalid  took  what  she  called 
a  "  warm  bath  "  every  night.  Going  without  warning  to 
the  family  home  one  night  at  ten  o'clock,  he  found  that 
his  patient  was  taking  her  usual  warm  bath.  A  bath 
thermometer  that  he  had  brought  along  showed  that  the 
patient  regarded  1350  as  only  a  properly  "  warm  "  bath. 
He  ordered  an  ioo°  bath  every  other  night  instead,  lim- 
ited to  ten  minutes,  and  the  patient  began  to  pick  up 
immediately. 

Every  bathroom  needs  a  bath  thermometer.  Most  per- 
sons are  poor  guessers  as  to  temperature. 

The  fresh  air  bath  is  a  fine  practice.  This  is  taken  in 
order  to  let  the  skin  breathe.  The  time  desirable  is  from 
five  to  ten  minutes  daily.  The  more  humid  the  day  the 
longer  should  the  bath  be.     Every  skin  needs  aeration. 

Every  human  skin  should  be  "  good  leather."  It  may 
also  be  white  and  pink  and  fair  and  beautiful;  but  it 
should  at  least  be  substantial  and  have  texture.  Tissue 
paper  is  not  a  good  standard  for  a  human  skin.  In  a 
general  way,  no  other  health  sign  is  any  better  than  the 
skin  itself. 

To  develop  and  keep  a  good  skin,  take  short,  frequent 
water  baths  and  daily  air  baths.  A  good  skin  flushes 
white  and  then  red  promptly  in  reaction  to  slight  pressure. 
It  has  body  and  shows  good  capillary  activities.  The 
color  and  condition  of  the  skin  of  the  face  below  the 
eyes  tell  much  of  the  truth  as  to  the  health  of  anyone. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
CLOTHING  AND  FOOTWEAR 

SCHOOL  teachers  make  no  worse  errors  in  personal 
hygiene  than  their  characteristic  errors  in  attire.  We 
in  America  are  in  the  north  temperate  zone ;  and  save  in 
Florida,  upon  the  Gulf  Coast  and  upon  .the  Pacific  Coast, 
we  have  the  winter  with  which  to  contend.  We  go  to  and 
from  our  work  in  cold  weather  for  a  period  of  from 
three  months  in  Tennessee  to  six  months  in  Maine  and 
Michigan ;  but  at  our  work,  we  are  living  in  warm 
weather  again,  as  we  are  at  night  in  our  homes. 

Perhaps  after  we  become  civilized,  we  shall  find  a  way 
to  build  our  schoolhouses  with  dressing  rooms,  in  order 
that  we  may  put  on  completely  different  sets  of  clothes 
for  the  several 'hours  in  the  warm  indoors. 

Except  outdoors  in  winter,  no  one  should  ever  wear 
heavy  underclothing;  but  outdoors,  frail  persons  may 
need  woolens  above  porous  knit  underwear. 

Men  err  by  wearing  heavy  woolen  underwear  through- 
out the  winter  fourteen  and  sixteen  hours  a  day,  which  is 
bad.  Women  err  by  wearing  thin  cotton  and  linen  under- 
wear even  outdoors  with  the  thermometer  at  10  degrees 
and  a  wind  blowing,  which  may  be  fatal. 

The  schoolroom  should  be  at  from  62  degrees  to  68 
degrees  Fahrenheit  temperature.  Absolute  uniformity  is 
undesirable.  A  variation  within  every  hour  of  at  least 
ten  degrees,  never  going  above  70°,  is  desirable.  We 
should  swing  across  64  °  or  65  °  several  times  every  school 
day. 

But  when  the  temperature  is  65  °,  woolen  underwear  is 
too  warm ;  it  prevents  the  skin  temperature  nerves  and 

188 


CD  >THING  AND  FOOTWEAR  189 

from  operating  well.  Many  and  many  a  man 
teacher  lives  from  8.45  A.  m.  till  11.45  and  ^rom  l  '*•  ■*• 
to  3.45  inside  of  a  suffocated  skin.  It  may  be  that  his 
own  home  is  also  warm  and  comfortable  at  68°  or  pos- 
sibly even  720.  Still  worse,  it  may  be  that  he  sleeps  in 
heavy  night  garments  and  under  thick,  heavy  and  hot 
bedclothing,  in  a  room  kept  up  to  65 °  through  the  night. 
Small  wonder  that  so  many  men  teachers  die  of  tuber- 
culosis, pneumonia  and  bronchitis.  Their  skins  have 
never  had  any  chance  to  relieve  their  lungs  in  the  work 
of  proper  temperature  regulation  of  the  human  body. 

With  the  woman  teacher,  it  is  the  other  way  around. 
Desiring  to  be  fairly  comfortable  at  school  and  at  home, 
she  dresses  lightly  as  to  underwear,  and  relies  upon  her 
ability  to  stand  being  frozen  on  the  way  to  and  from 
school.  Truth  is  that  because  a  woman  from  sixteen  to 
fifty  years  of  age,  unless  tightly  corseted,  has  a  better 
heating  power  than  a  man,  she  can  make  a  dash  for  the 
schoolhouse  and  for  the  first  five  or  ten  minutes  on  the 
really  be  fairly  comfortable  even  in  zero  weather. 
She  pays  for  this  by  being  cold  for  the  first  half  hour  or 
so  at  school  and  again  at  home.  She  simply  will  not  wear 
Mich  heavy  underclothing  as  a  man  can  stand  for  a  period 
of  time  and  not  die  because  of  it.  Nevertheless,  our 
women  teachers  pay  for  being  too  thinly  clad  outdoors 
by  acquiring  another  trouble ;  besides  tuberculosis,  pneu- 
monia and  bronchitis,  they  get  tonsilitis. 

(  nly  old  persons,  past  fifty  years,  with  wearing  out 

and  lazy  skins,  or  invalids  with  poor  metabolism 
should  wear  heavy  woolen  underwear;  and  even  such 
persons  should  wear  porous  knit  garments  of  cotton  or 
linen  next  to  the  skin.  The  worst  underwear  ever  in- 
fed  for  indoor  workers  has  a  soft  nap  that  mats  against 
the  skin,  holds  the  wet  perspiration  and  suffocates  the 
pores. 


iQO   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

For  healthy,  vigorous  persons,  there  is  only  one  kind 
of  underwear ;  porous  knit  of  cotton,  linen  or  silk.  When 
one  suit  is  not  enough,  wear  two  suits.  When  two  suits 
are  not  enough,  wear  one  suit  of  porous  knit  and  a  thin 
hard  woolen  or  silk  suit  over  this.  If  these  two  suits 
are  not  enough,  only  a  physician  can  solve  the  riddle. 

Most  men  wear  not  only  woolen  underwear  but  also 
heavy  woolen  suits  for  outer  wear.  They  are  dressed  in- 
doors as  for  an  Eskimo  igloo  of  ice  lit  by  a  hole  to  the 
sky  in  daytime  and  ventilated  thereby. 

Many  a  case  of  insomnia  is  directly  due  to  being  over- 
heated all  day  long. 

Since  teachers  cannot  arrange  to  dress  according  to 
the  real  weather,  outdoors  and  indoors,  from  hour  to 
hour,  it  becomes  expedient  to  approximate  a  correct  solu- 
tion for  the  problem. 

i.  Wear  light  or  medium  underclothing,  preferably, 
porous  knit.  Never  wear  woolen  underwear  in  school 
unless  old  or  feeble  or  frail. 

2.  Wear  medium  weight  outer  garments. 

3.  In  winter,  wear  either  (a)  a  medium  weight  cloak 
or  overcoat  with  a  sweater  under  it  or  (b)  a  heavy  cloak 
or  overcoat,  even  of  fur.  (A  fur  cloak  for  a  woman  or 
overcoat  for  a  man  is  suitable  only  for  excessively  cold 
weather ;  below  zero ;  or  for  riding  purposes ;  a  fur  coat 
is  not  a  walking  garment  for  any  above  io°  weather.) 

For  outside  wear,  one  really  needs  a  choice  of  at  least 
four  garments,  viz. — 

1.  A  light  weight  spring  or  autumn  coa4,  of  moderate 
length. 

2.  A  heavier  weight  long  winter  coat. 

3.  A  short  heavy  weight  walking  coat. 

4.  A  sweater  of  good  weight  and  length,  no  arms. 

Of  course,  various  other  garments  may  well  be  added. 
Properly  cared  for  through  the  summer  against  the  moths 


CLOTHING  AND  FOOTWEAR  191 

and  dampness,  they  represent  no  greatly  increased  amount 
of  cost,  for  they  share  the  total  wear  and  tear ;  and  they 
save  bills  of  doctors  and  dentists.  Those  who  do  not 
keep  warm,  who  do  not  adequately  protect  themselves 
from  exposure,  are  the  profitable  patients  for  physicians 
and  surgeons  of  all  kinds. 

There  was  the  case  of  a  moderately  healthy  man  who 
upon  an  autumn  day  sat  for  four  hours  by  an  open 
window  in  an  electric  traction  car  without  an  overcoat. 
The  next  morning,  he  had  (1)  an  inflamed  left  eye  (the 
side  toward  the  breeze  from  the  window),  (2)  facial 
neuralgia;  (3)  three  days  later,  he  had  bronchial  pneu- 
monia of  the  left  lung.  It  required  the  services  of  an 
oculist  (2)  a  dentist;  (3)  a  physician;  (4)  a  trained 
nurse  for  four  weeks  to  get  him  well.  He  lost  one 
month's  wages  and  paid  more  than  two  hundred  dollars 
for  medical  attendance.  When  you  go  riding  next  time, 
put  on  an  ulster  with  a  high  collar ;  or  don't  lit  by  an  open 
window  in  a  trolley. 

The  true  purpose  of  clothing  is  to  keep  the  body  at 
normal  temperature  at  all  times.  This  is  very  simple. 
It  is  in  truth  so  simple  that  few  persons  give  any  con- 
sideration to  it.  If  we  lived  outdoors  from  6  a.  m.  to  9 
p.  M.,  we  should  need  in  the  north  temperate  zone  (save 
in  the  extreme  heat  of  summer  and  the  extreme  cold  of 
winter)  usually  to  make  three  changes  of  clothing  daily, 
viz. : 

1.  Warm  clothing  from  6  a.  m.  to  10. 

2.  Less  clothing  from  10  a.  m.  to  5  p.  m. 

3.  Warm  clothing  again  till  9  p.  m. 

CLOTHING    MATERIALS 

Really,  we  need  warmer  bed-clothing  from  1  a.  m.  to  6 
than  in  the  first  few  hours  of  sleep  when  the  body  heat  is 
higher  and  steadier.     Many  persons  find  it  desirable  to 


192   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

spread  over  the  foot  of  the  bed  an  extra  blanket  that  may 
easily  be  drawn  up  even  by  a  sleepy  person,  not  half 
awake,  who  feels  cold  at  2  a.  m. 

For  materials  in  clothing,  the  human  race  has  developed 
five  main  supplies :  linen,  cotton,  wool,  silk  and  skins  with 
and  without  fur.  The  ancient  civilized  peoples  about  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  got  along  with  linen  textiles  for  thou- 
sands of  years  while  our  Teutonic  ancestors  about  the 
Baltic  Sea  and  our  Keltic  ancestors  in  France  and  the 
British  Isles  kept  themselves  tolerably  comfortable  in 
skins.  Only  modern  man  has  used  to  any  considerable 
extent  wool  or  cotton  or  silk.  g 

The  effects  of  these  five  materials  upon  the  health 
depends,  of  course,  to  an  extent  upon  their  manufactured 
condition.  Still,  there  are  inherent  qualities  in  each  not 
wholly  changed  in  manufacture. 

In  recent  years,  it  has  become  the  style  to  line  men's 
overcoats  with  fine  dressed  leather,  with  the  skins  of 
rabbits  and  hares  (whose  pelts  have  been  stripped  of  fur 
to  make  the  felts  of  hats)  ;  or  with  the  skins  of  lambs, 
kids,  etc.  Such  a  skin-lined  coat  shuts  out  the  wind 
without  being  so  excessively  warm  in  mild  weather  as  a 
coat  lined  with  muskrat  fur.  It  does  not,  however,  ven- 
tilate so  well  in  quiet  air  as  does  an  overcoat  with  a 
woolen  lining. 

A  woman's  coat  with  the  fur  outside  is  warmer,  weight 
for  weight,  than  a  man's  coat  with  the  fur  inside.  It 
turns  the  wind  better  to  wear  the  fur  outside. 

A  fur  cloak  or  overcoat  in  the  north  is  not  an  extrava- 
gance even  though  it  represents  a  considerable  capital 
outlay,  for  it  lasts  many  years.  But  it  is  not  the  first 
coat  to  buy,  for  it  serves  well  only  in  bitter  weather. 

Every  teacher  should  have  a  raincoat  in  good  condition  ; 
rubbers  and  arctic  overshoes ;  and  two  umbrellas,  one  for 
home,  the  other  for  school,  at  each  end  of  the  route. 


CLOTHING  AND  FOOTWEAR  193 

SHOES 

Much  has  been  written  and  spoken  about  shoes  with 
low  heels  for  women.  It  is  one  of  "  the  101  anatomical 
peculiarities  of  women  "  that  characteristically  their  feet 
have  higher  arches  than  have  the  feet  of  men  of  respec- 
tively the  same  race,  stock  and  breed.  A  foot  with  a 
high  arch  requires  a  correspondingly  high  heel.  Of 
course,  the  fashionable  very  high  heel  is  an  outrage  to  the 
anatomy  of  any  foot,  and  the  woman  who  wears  it  de- 
serves all  the  backaches,  headaches,  and  other  discomforts 
that  it  properly  causes ;  but  the  "  low,  broad  heel  "  of  the 
conventional  ladies'  magazine  article  on  "  hygiene  for 
women  "  is  only  for  the  few  women  whose  feet  have  low 
arches. 

A  low  arch  is  not  the  same  thing  as  a  flat  foot ;  a  low 
heel  on  a  foot  with  a  high  arch  will  help  to  cause  a  flat 
foot,  that  is,  a  broken  arch.  The  most  important  of  all 
features  in  being  fitted  with  shoes  is  that  the  new  shoe 
shall  have  a  properly  built  instep  to  fit  one's  own  foot  and 
to  support  it  strongly.  Very  few  shoe  manufacturers 
make  shoes  that  fit  the  human  foot  as  it  really  is.  The 
notion  that  a  broad,  flat  shoe  with  a  low,  broad  heel  is 
meant  for  one  and  all  belongs  to  the  museum  of  hygiene 
myths. 

It  is  an  excellent  rule  never  to  wear  the  same  pair  of 
shoes  all  day  two  days  in  succession.  Any  shoe  after 
being  worn  one  day  needs  to  be  rested  by  wearing  a  dif- 
ferent shoe  every  other  day.  Upon  this  plan,  two  pairs 
of  shoes  will  wear  as  long  as  three,  when  each  is  worn 
daily  until  it  gives  out.  Nor  should  the  two  pairs  for 
ordinary  daily  use  be  on  the  same  last  or  of  the  same 
material.  They  should  at  least  be  somewhat  different  to 
rest  the  foot. 

For  teachers,  there  is  nothing  in  wearing  waterproof 


194   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

or  patent  leather  shoes  for  daily  ordinary  life.  Such 
leathers  do  not  ventilate  the  feet. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  teacher  who  particularly  fancied 
leather-lined,  heavy  shoes,  which  he  wore  for  two  years. 
In  the  spring  of  the  second  year,  he  developed  a  skin 
disease  between  the  toes  that  was  checked  by  special 
treatment  and  by  wearing  thereafter  very  light  shoes ; 
but  neither  physician  nor  surgeon,  neither  chiropodist 
nor  hydrotherapist  was  ever  able  to  cure  the  disease.  He 
tried  seabathing,  sunbathing,  and  various  ointments;  he 
had  his  toes  and  feet  skinned  by  experts ;  to  no  avail, 
beyond  arresting  the  further  progress  of  the  disease. 

Many  foot  troubles  can  be  cured,  while  practically  all 
can  be  alleviated  by  wearing  shoes  of  the  right  kinds  and 
by  changing  them  frequently.  It  is  well  to  keep  in  use 
not  less  than  a  half  dozen  pairs  of  shoes. 

Headaches  and  many  other  pains  are  often  caused  by 
too  tight,  even  airtight  shoes,  and  too  heavy  shoes.  Al- 
ways wear  at  home  either  very  light  shoes  or  slippers.    . 

It  does  not  take  much  reflection  to  realize  that  the 
human  foot  was  meant  to  go  bare;  and  that  while  one 
cannot  go  barefoot  in  our  northern  winters  or  in  polite 
society  or  upon  modern  streets,  still  a  light  foot  is  the 
ideal.  Light  shoes  often  wear  longer  than  heavy  ones. 
The  same  reflections  apply  to  socks  for  men.  But  few 
women  now  wear  heavy  stockings.  Some  men,  however, 
like  heavy  socks  to  soften  the  feeling  of  their  shoes.  This 
is  bad  for  the  feet,  stimulating  excessive  perspiration  and 
making  them  tender. 

COLLARS   AND  BELTS 

Some  men  wear  too  high  collars;  others  wear  collars 
that  are  too  tight.  Such  collars  are  very  bad  for  the 
thyroid  gland  and  for  the  carotid  arteries  in  the  neck. 


CLOTHING  AND  FOOTWEAR  195 

A  hygienically  proper  collar  is  low  and  roomy;  a  14-inch 
neck  requires  a  15^-inch  collar.  Soft  collars  are  far 
better  for  the  neck  circulation  than  the  modern  stiffly 
laundered  collars.  Soft  shirts,  of  course,  are  more  com- 
fortable than  shirts  with  stiff  bosoms.  Comfort  contrib- 
utes greatly  toihealth. 

The  same  principle  applies  to  the  necks  of  women. 
Some  young  women  wear  dresses  and  waists  cut  alto- 
gether too  high  in  the  neck,  and  a  few  wear  them  cut  too 
low.  Neither  constant  sweating  nor  constant  chilling  of 
the  outer  neck  and  throat  ever  did  any  one  any  good. 

Some  men  wear  too  heavy  vests,  and  many  women  wear 
too  tight  corsets.  Any  compression  of  the  liver  is  bad. 
Often  an  autopsy  shows  a  liver  distorted  and  almost 
separated  into  two  parts  from  tight  dressing  in  early 
youth  continued  until  diabetes  or  cirrhosis  has  carried  the 
patient  off.  And  more  than  one  stomach,  instead  of 
being  horizontal,  has  turned  vertical  in  self-defense. 
And  very  many  diaphragms  and  bases  of  lungs  «are 
bleached  and  almost  atrophied  for  the  want  of  use  sixteen 
hours  a  day.  Tight  corsets  and  tight  belts  will  bring  on 
death  as  surely  as  a  noose  about,  the  neck,  though  not  so 
(juickly.  They  are  especially  dangerous  to  the  persons 
most  inclined  to  wear  them, —  the  corpulent.  To  wear 
tight  clothes  is  one  way  to  insure  that  a  fat  person  will  get 
r.  Tight  corsets,  belts,  vests,  waists,  coats  are  active 
assistants  to  pneumonia,  to  tuberculosis,  to  heart  leakages 
and  hypertrophies,  to  vertigoes,  to  diabetes  and  to  stomach 
disorders  of  various  kinds. 

HOW    TO    WEAR    CLOTHES 

How  to  wear  clothes  is  more  important  than  how  to  buy 

them  or  how  to  cut,  fit  and  sew  them.     Dresses  and 

of  clothes  should  not  be  worn  over  two  or  three  days 

consecutively,  but  laid  aside  every  day  or  so  to  aerate  and 


196   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

to  be  shaped  again.  They  should  be  put  on  right  and 
worn  right.  Many  persons  do  not  know  how  to  put  on 
and  to  wear  even  the  clothes  that  fit  them.  As  one 
result,  they  allow  their  clothing  to  pull  them  out  of  form, 
to  draw  them  into  bad  postures,  even  to  encourage  spinal 
curvatures. 

It  is  hygienically  a  fine  thing  to  get  home  from  school 
at  4.30  p.  m.  and  going  directly  to  one's  room,  to  change 
every  stitch  of  clothing  upon  the  body  even  when  one  has 
no  time  to  lie  down  and  rest  one's  spine  for  a  half  hour 
or  more,  as  every  woman  should  do  in  order  to  live  long 
and  happily.  When  this  cannot  be  done,  at  least  take  off 
the  upper  garments  and  rest  the  neck  and  shoulders. 

Many  pains  are  directly  due  to  wearing  too  heavy  a 
weight  upon  the  shoulders  or  hips  for  too  long  a  time 
without  rest  and  change.  No  two  coats  pull  quite  the 
same  way.  A  change  of  pressure  often  relieves  one 
greatly. 

Contrary  to  the  popular  notion  about  hygiene,  a  good 
walking  outfit,  heavy  dress,  short,  with  heavy  walking 
shoes,  "  a  sensible  costume,"  is  not  at  all  the  outfit  for 
the  schoolroom.  For  ladies,  silks  and  hard  twisted  goods 
to  turn  the  dust,  of  light  weights ;  the  dresses  well  down 
over  the  high  shoetops,  not  too  long  sleeves,  made  easy 
about  the  neck  and  throat,  should  always  be  chosen.  A 
schoolroom  is  a  working  room  like  a  ladies'  sewing  room, 
a  gentleman's  library,  or  the  family  sitting  room ;  it  is  not 
like  a  hunting  lodge  in  the  woods  or  a  blacksmith's  shop. 

COLORS 

Both  men  and  women  should  choose  for  colors  goods 
that  make  them  cheerful. 

Blue  in  almost  any  shade  or  tone  is  generally  accept- 
able.    Some  shades  and  tones  of  red  are  agreeable. 

Fresh  browns  in  some  shades  are  pleasant,  though  few 


CLOTHING  AND  FOOTWEAR  197 

browns  are  ever  attractive  except  in  furs  and  in  velvets. 
Soft  greens  are  winning. 

Greys  are  favorites  with  men  and  olive  drabs  have 
recently  come  in  because  of  army  popularity.  They  do 
not  show  dust ;  but  greys  and  drabs  and  most  browns  are 
melancholy. 

Unless  brightened  up  with  trimmings,  neckties,  ribbons 
in  fine  colors,  all  blacks  are  taboo  for  the  schoolhouse. 
To  one  in  mourning,  black  and  white  are  a  forgivable 
combination.  Children  are  not  so  hard  hearted  as  some 
imagine,  and  they  appreciate  true  sorrow  at  its  worth. 

Recent  scientific  tests  show  that  a  black  cloth  holds  the 
actinic  rays  of  sunlight  and  is  therefore  warmer  in  win- 
ter outdoors  than  a  white  cloth.  Red  also  is  a  warm 
color.     All  blues  are  relatively  cool. 

Nevertheless,  generally,  the  garments  of  young  and 
middle-aged  teachers  should  be  chosen  primarily  to  ex- 
press joy  in  life,  even  gayety.  A  public  school  staff  of 
men  and  women  all  dressed  in  colors  defensive  to  the  dis- 
closure of  dust  is  inappropriate  and  should  be  transferred 
to  the  care  of  the  public  morgue  where  its  gloom  befits 
the  scene.  The  teacher  who  is  happy  and  who  looks 
happy  is  the  one  for  happy  children  and  youth. 

Colors  indirectly  influence  the  health.  Here  individual 
tastes  play  their  part.  Blondes  like  pinks  and  blues  and 
brunettes  prefer  purples,  violets  and  yellows.  The 
teacher  of  Swedish  and  Saxon  children  should  remember 
this;  and  the  teacher  of  Russian  Jews  and  Italians  like- 
wise. The  colors  worn  should  fit  the  personality  of  the 
teacher.  But  only  very  old  teachers  look  right  in  the 
sober,  dignified  colors. 

Of  course,  some  persons  are  blind  to  colors  as  some 
are  blind  to  forms.  Some  are  deaf  to  tones  and  pitches. 
But  the  generality  of  teachers  understand  these  matters 
as  also  do  most  children. 


198   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Even  flies  respond  to  color,  deserting  rooms  papered  in 
some  colors  and  lit  through  globes  of  such  colors. 

Invalids  are  happier  in  rooms  of  some  colors  than  of 
others.  Delicate  colors  are,  of  course,  the  finest;  but 
they  should  not  be  so  delicate  and  fresh  as  to  be  charac- 
terless. 

Often,  mixed  and  plaid  colors  go  well  in  the  school- 
room. Perhaps,  color  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  some 
healthy  persons,  but  it  certainly  is  not  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  most  persons  who  teach  school  or  to  most  children 
who  attend.  The  white,  light  summer  dresses  are  attrac- 
tive to  all  in  the  appropriate  season.  Teachers  who 
wear  ugly  clothes  are  not  generally  the  ones  who  are 
popular  with  the  children. 

To  make  esthetic  persons  happy,  the  texture,  which 
gives  a  feeling  to  the  touch,  makes  some  difference. 
There  are  harsh  cloths  that,  notwithstanding  beauty  of 
color  and  of  design,  nevertheless  do  not  feel  right  but 
make  one  uncomfortable  because  they  irritate  the  fingers. 

Even  the  shirts  of  men  that  show  only  the  cuffs  and 
the  small  patch  of  bosom  at  each  side  of  a  four-in-hand 
necktie  should  be  selected  for  cheerfulness  and  peace  of 
mind  as  much  as  the  neckties. 

Sometimes,  the  garters  or  stocking-supporters  are  un- 
comfortable ;  more  than  one  man  has  a  lame  neck  because 
his  suspenders  do  not  give  as  they  should  to  the  move- 
ments of  his  body. 

In  winter,  the  teacher  needs  warm  gloves,  wool  or  fur 
lined.  Women  teachers  should  use  good  fur  muffs. 
Wastage  of  heat  from  the  hands  is  especially  to  be 
avoided  by  persons  past  forty  years  of  age,  whose  livers 
are  never  again  to  be  as  active  as  they  were  once. 

The  purpose  of  attire  is  primarily  to  enable  one  to  be 
comfortable  always ;  indoors  and  outdoors ;  morning, 
noon,  evening,  midnight;  whatever  the  season;  whether 


CLOTHING  AND  FOOTWEAR  199 

the  sky  be  sunny  or  cloudy  ;  no  matter  what  wind  blows 
or  fails  to  blow ;  in  dry  weather  and  in  wet.  Health  re- 
quires comfortable  clothing.  A  person  without  the  sense 
of  bodily  comfort  and  discomfort  is  unlikely  either  to 
live  long  or  to  be  glad  of  living  at  all.  This  somesthesia 
is  to  be  developed  as  an  essential  aid  to  strength,  force 
and  health. 

The  clothing  should  not  pull  across  the  shoulders  and 
induce  spinal  strains,  or  confine  the  lungs  from  properly 
expanding  and  induce  yawning  from  insufficient  aeration 
of  the  blood,  or  stop  the  circulation  in  the  lower  limbs, 
or  in  any  way  or  to  any  degree  cause  one  to  feel  imme- 
diate irritation  or  toward  the  close  of  the  day  any  special 
local  fatigue.  To  clothing  for  social  propriety  and  for 
personal  adornment,  women  pay  altogether  too  much  at- 
tention ;  and  to  clothing  at  once  respectable  and  that  will 
wear  well,  men  pay  too  much  attention ;  and  both  men 
and  women  think  too  little  of  the  first  value  of  clothing, 
which  is  to  protect  the  body  against  the  weather  and  to 
promote  the  physical  well-being  thereby. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
PERIODICITIES,  INCLUDING  MENSTRUATION 

THE   PULSE 

NO  discoveries  respecting  the  physiology  of  man  are 
more  important  than  those  of  the  periodicities ;  the 
ebbs  and  floods  of  the  bodily  life.  We  have  long  been 
familiar  with  the  periodicity  of  the  blood  in  the  pulse. 
We  know  that  the  pulse  runs  in  healthy  persons  anywhere 
from  50  to  90  beats  a  minute;  to  even  150  after  a  2-mile 
run  by  young  athletes.  We  have  fixed  upon  76  to  80 
beats  as  "  standard,"  knowing  that  wide  variations  are 
permissible  when  the  blood  pressure  is  countervailing. 

The  heart,  then,  is  a  periodic  organ,  a  governor  upon  an 
engine,  a  timekeeper. 

Reading  the  pulse  is  a  fine  art.  The  expert  diagnos- 
tician tells  much  by  the  pulse, —  chills,  fevers,  strokes, 
faintings,  fears,  anemia,  and  many  other  health  conditions 
report  themselves  in  the  pulse. 

There  are  a  dozen  other  periodicities. 

THE  DIURNAL   PERIOD 

Sleep  is  a  periodicity.  Man  is  meant  to  sleep  from 
dark  to  dawn  and  to  nap  after  breakfast  and  noon-meal. 
His  pulse  normally  betrays  this.  There  are  many  other 
symptoms  also  that  show  why  we  should  sleep  oftener 
than  once  daily.  The  variability  of  the  blood  pressure 
through  the  day  shows  this  as  well  as  the  pulse. 

The  person  who  says, — "  Oh,  I  can  never  sleep  in  the 
day  time ! "  and  the  one  who  says,  "  Why,  if  I  take  an 

200 


PERIODICITIES  201 

afternoon  nap,  I  cannot  sleep  all  night  without  a  break !  " 
are  asserting  that  by  American  habit  and  American  paren- 
tal indoctrination  their  ancient,  instinctive  sleep-periodic- 
ity has  been  broken  and  that  a  heightened  consciousness, 
a  marked  brain  activity,  has  supervened. 


THE   MENSAL   PERIOD 

A  third  periodicity  is  equally  well  known  and  by  women 
generally  better  understood  ;  the  28%  day  moonmonth  ebb 
and  flood.  This  is  a  hundred  times  as  strong  in  women 
as  in  men  and  is  recorded  in  menstruation. 

In  this  28%  day  period,  strength  and  vitality  run  a 
cycle.  Within  the  five  days  of  normal  menstruation, 
there  is  an  ebb  usually  lowest  through  the  second  day. 
Two  days  after  the  menstrual  flow,  there  is  a  marked 
return  of  vigor,  which  runs  to  a  climax,  varying  in  indi- 
viduals but  usual  about  the  eighth  or  tenth  day.  There- 
after, the  strength  runs  down  steadily.  Many  women  are 
quite  weak  and  feel  discouraged  for  several  days  prior  to 
the  menstrual  flow.  The  whole  period  can  be  definitely 
measured  and  the  stream  of  vitality  at  its  various  heights 
and  depths  can  be  duly  recorded. 

Any  physiologist  looks  for  considerable  depression  in 
any  woman  just  prior  to  the  monthly  illness  and  through- 
out its  term  and  for  considerable  elation  for  the  ten  days 
thereafter.  It  is,  of  course,  within  these  ten  days  or  so 
that  the  wedded  woman  conceives  the  child.  No  woman 
of  good  sense  anticipates  feeling  "jfit  for  anything  "  more 
than  twenty  days  in  the  month ;  nor  is  such  a  woman  sur- 
prised by  feeling  unequal  to  the  tasks  of  life  at  least  two 
or  three  days  of  the  month.  Such  experiences  are  strictly 
normal.  Fortunately,  the  tears  and  fears  threaten  her  for 
but  a  few  days ;  and  joy  and  gayety  quickly  return  to 
rule  for  most  of  the  time.     Woman  is  born  to  vastly 


202   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

more  trouble  than  is  man ;  but  she  has  vastly  more  power 
of  recuperation. 

This  same  moonmonth  periodicity  affects  men,  though 
but  slightly.  There  is,  of  course,  no  such  accompanying 
phenomenon  as  comes  in  the  life  of  woman.  But  even  a 
man  has  every  four  weeks  or  so  a  week  of  comparative 
dolef ulness ;  and  should  govern  himself  accordingly.  In 
this  fourth  week,  he  is  especially  liable  to  catch  cold  and 
to  feel  blue  and  to  be  unable  to  work  vigorously  because 
his  inner  fires  are  burning  low. 

Between  the  diurnal  sleep  periodicity  and  this  mensal 
periodicity,  there  intervenes  the  hebdomadal  (seven  day) 
periodicity,  which  has  been  the  natural  law  basis  of  -the 
Mosaic  Commandment  of  work  six  days  and  rest  the 
seventh.  Unfortunately  for  religious  purposes,  the  true 
succession  on  natural  principles  is  as  follows,  viz. :  ist. 
week  6  days  —  work ;  i  day  —  rest ;  total  7  days.  Re- 
peat in  all  20  times.  Then  17th  week  7  days  work,  1 
day  rest.  Total  no  days.  By  this  means,  Nature  keeps 
track  of  the  extra  }4  day  in  each  moonmonth. 

Because  of  this  law  of  the  moon,  for  about  four 
months,  we  have  a  bad  health  turn  every  Sunday ;  then 
for  four  months  more,  every  Monday;  then  every  Tues- 
day. We  cannot  help  this.  All  that  we  can  do  is  to 
understand  it.  We  can  no  more  change  such  periodicity 
than  we  can  live  without  salt  in  the  blood. 

Sometimes,  a  silly  person  says  to  another,  "  Think 
faster."  The  average  normal  young  woman  thinks  150 
thoughts  a  minute.  No  power  on  earth  can  change  this. 
By  a  blow,  we  can  shock  a  heart  out  of  its  beat ;  with 
drugs,  we  can  speed  it  up  or  slow  it  down.  Nevertheless, 
every  heart  left  to  itself  has  a  characteristic  beat. 

A  man  who  finds  himself  feeling  poorly  every  Friday 
for  a  while  may  take  drugs  and  kill  his  sensation ;  but  he 
will  never  change  his  tendency  to  a  seven-day  period ;  — 


PERIODICITIES  203 

I  buoyant  Tuesday  means  a  depressed  Friday.  The  only 
moral  of  hygienic  importance  is  to  adjust  one's  tasks 
accordingly.  ^ 

The  diurnal  and  the  mensal  ebbs  and  floods  are  far 
greater  than  the  hebdomadal. 

A  woman  teacher  should  be  careful  not  to  try  to  attend 
to  important  business  with  the  school  authorities  on  her 
poor  days. 

There  is  a  serious  difference  in  strength  and  health  in 
all  men  and  women  from  season  to  season.  In  normal 
years,  January  and  February  are  the  best  months  of 
health ;  and  July  and  August  are  the  worst.  We  are 
strongest  in  midwinter  and  weakest  in  midsummer.  It  is 
a  very  great  misfortune  for  teachers  that  the  annual 
examinations  for  the  promotion  of  children  and  youth 
come  in  May  and  June ;  they  should  come  in  February. 
They  come  when  the  vitality  is  running  down,  and  help  it 
to  run  down  faster. 


THE   ANNUAL   PERIOD 

In  sound  principle,  there  should  be  no  examinations 
covering  a  year's  work.  The  notion  is  sheer  superstition, 
supported  by  the  mediaeval  beliefs  that  all  minds  are 
alike  and  that  brain  and  mind  have  no  relation  whatso- 
ever. When  schools  learn  the  knowledge  and  wisdom 
that  a  few  of  their  professors  are  valiantly  trying  to 
spread  abroad  through  the  school  year.  September  to 
June,  annual  examinations  will  be  as  dead  as  hereditary 
autocracy.  All  courses  should  last  according  to  the 
norms  of  their  subjects,  that  is,  controlled  by  their  own 
inner  logic,  and  students  should  pursue  each  course  until 
they  can  fairly  exemplify  its  principles  ami  methods. 

Vital  statistics  prove  conclusively  that  we  are  most 
liable  to  seriou-   disease  and   to   death   in   the   summer 


204   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

months ;  this  is  true  of  all  human  beings  at  all  ages,  not 
only  of  babies  and  the  very  aged,  as  some  suppose.  By 
taking  midsummer  vacations,  we  resist  this  depression 
and  thereby  promote  health  and  prolong  life. 

There  are  just  three  kinds  of  teachers  who  should  study 
in  summer  schools  and  then  not  later  than  eleven  o'clock 
in  the  morning  and  further  provided  that  they  take 
afternoon  naps  every  school  day.  These  three  sets  of 
teachers  are  as  follows,  viz. — 

i.  Those  whose  physicians  can  honorably  report  that 
they  are  physically  well  and  rested. 

2.  Those  taking  courses  in  hygiene  and  physical  exer- 
cise under  medical  direction  definitely  designed  to  improve 
their  health. 

3.  Those  not  perfectly  well  and  not  yet  positively  ill 
taking  summer  courses  that  will  make  their  work  the  fol- 
lowing year  much  easier,  much  less  wearing,  so  that  the 
summer  study  will  greatly  lessen  the  winter  worry  and 
fatigue. 

All  other  teachers  should  either  rest  and  play  at  the 
oceanside  or  in  the  mountains  all  summer  or  else  do 
physical  work  under  at  least  fairly  hygienic  conditions. 
There  are  just  two  ways  for  a  brain-worker  to  make  his 
summer  contribute  to  his  health  and  strength;  outright 
recreation,  steady  muscular  toil.  For  most  teachers,  the 
former  is  much  better  than  the  latter. 

This  seasonal  periodicity  through  the  year  means  that 
we  can  safely  load  up  through  December,  January  and 
February,  but  that  we  should  begin  to  ease  off  in  March. 
It  is  very  bad  to  plunge  in  and  work  furiously  in  Septem- 
ber and  October.  If  we  could  make  Easter  the  time  of 
vacation  and  of  relief  from  toil,  it  would  be  far  better 
than  the  present  fortnight  of  holidays  in  December  and 
early  January.  This  is  the  true  succession,  viz. —  Sep- 
tember,   October,    November,    December,    January,     5 


PERIODICITIES  205 

months,  work  ;  February,  vacation ;  March,  April,  May, 
June,  July,  5  months,  work;  August,  vacation. 

Those  who  take  real  vacations  in  summer  are  stronger 
in  November  than  in  May.  Otherwise,  there  is  nothing 
to  choose  between  the  two  months  as  to  the  strength  of 
the  ordinary  man. 

Tnder  even  normal  conditions,  the  body  weighs  5  to  10 
per  cent,  more  in  February  than  in  August;  and  the 
muscles  are  25  to  40  per  cent,  stronger.  Under  the  ab- 
normal conditions  of  public  school  teaching  in  cities,  the 
contrasts  are  generally  twice  as  great.  Many  women 
teachers  are  muscularly  "  weak  as  water,"  in  midsum- 
mer. 

THE  SEVEN    YEAR    PERIOD    (  ?) 

A  periodicity  but  recently  discovered  is  of  startling 
interest.  The  members  of  every  family  display  a  char- 
acteristic hereditary  tendency  to  illness  at  regular  inter- 
varying  for  the  respective  families.  A  few  cases 
illustrate  this,  viz. — 

W.  S.  C  was  very  ill  at  8  years  of  age ;  at  16;  at  24; 
at  31  ;  at  39 ;  and  at  50  years. 

J.  H.  T.  was  seriously  ill  at  8  years;  at  14;  at  21 ;  at 
28 ;  at  34 ;  at  41 ;  and  at  52  years  of  age. 

L  C.  H.  was  so  ill  at  8  years  as  to  be  despaired  of, 
again  at  18  years  of  age ;  at  28;  and  again  at  35  years  of 
age. 

Two  sisters ;  born  five  years  apart ;  died  respectively  at 
45  years,  1  week  and  at  44  years,  11  months  and  13  weeks 
of  age. 

Dr.  A.  G.  H.  and  Dr.  W.  P.  H.  were  father  and  son. 
1  ty  years  of  age,  the  father  went  to  Europe  to  consult 
a  famous  young  physician  in  Antwerp  for  nervous  break- 
down and  insomnia.  Twenty-nine  years  afterwards,  the 
son  at  fifty  years  of  age  ill  from  the  same  cause,  visited 


206   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

the  same  physician ;  who  looked  up  the  case  of  the  father, 
and  found  that  each  had  told  of  illness  in  their  lives  at  the 
same  ages  and  of  the  same  character.  This,  of  course 
would  not  be  true  of  infectious  diseases;  but  it  is  often 
true  of  illnesses  self -originated. 

These  are  the  characteristic  weak  years  of  men  of  Eng- 
lish ancestry,  (tall,  slender,  impulsive,  persistent),  viz. — 

At  7  years  old ;  at  14 ;  at  21 ;  at  28 ;  at  35  ;  at  42 ;  at  49  ; 
and  at  56.  At  still  higher  ages,  the  periodicity  seems  to 
be  lost  in  general  decline  of  all  physical  powers. 

A  man  of  marked  Anglo-Saxon  type  had  inflammatory 
rheumatism  at  28  years  of  age ;  typhoid  fever  at  36 ;  brain 
fever  at  42;  erysipelas  at  56  (recovered  well)  ;  and  died 
at  64  years  of  age  of  cancer  of  the  stomach.  Notwith- 
standing this  amazing  record  of  bad  disease,  he  weighed 
200  pounds  at  25  years  of  age ;  225  at  40  years  of  age ; 
240  at  50  years ;  and  190  at  60  years,  and  was  of  extraor- 
dinary muscular  strength  until  his  last  illness. 

The  father  of  this  man  died  of  bronchitis  at  56  years 
of  age ;  and  his  mother  of  old  age,  sitting  in  a  chair,  read- 
ing the  Bible,  at  78  years  of  age. 

The  life  records  of  many  persons  seem  to  indicate  a 
human  tendency  to  an  ebb-and-flood  period  of  health  of 
seven  years,  viz. —  two  years  of  poor  health,  followed  by 
five  of  good  health,  yet  modified  considerably  by  peculiar 
climatic  conditions  and  by  serious  troubles  or  by  very 
great  successes. 

With  respect  to  this  periodicity,  the  hygienic  question 
is,  What  can  we  do  to  lessen  the  depth  of  depression  in 
the  ebb  of  the  tide? 

Having  discovered  his  own  tendency  to  go  to  pieces 
every  seven  years,  C.  W.  at  forty  years  of  age  took  a  year 
of  vacation,  which  he  repeated  at  forty-six  years  of  age, 
and  again  at  fifty- two,  upon  the  hypothesis  that  this 
would  completely  break  the  spell.     And  he  was  not  ill 


PERIODICITIES  207 

from  the  age  of  forty  years  until  fifty-seven,  the  last  time 
lie  was  under  observation.  He  took  these  vacations, 
though  a  teacher ;  but  he  was  fortunate  in  dealing  with  a 
governing  board  willing  to  grant  leaves  of  absence.  Un- 
questionably, the  sabbatical  year  of  rest  has  a  physiologi- 
cal basis.  It  is  granted  in  some  colleges  and  normal 
schools  and  in  a  few  cities. 


NUMBER   OF  THOUGHTS 

The  human  body  has  several  other  demonstrable  peri- 
odicities but  none  of  equal  hygienic  import  with  these. 
We  have  a  trick  of  fatigue  every  twenty  minutes  or  so, 
when  we  become  inattentive  and  take  an  almost  uncon- 
trollable rest.  We  think  about  135  thoughts  a  minute 
(  men  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  of  age,  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  stock)  ;  within  each  thought  or  stage  of  conscious- 
.  there  is  a  periodic  flow.  We  are  keenest  in  our 
attention  about  every  other  half-second.  Indeed,  it  is 
demonstrable  as  a  matter  of  physiological  psychology  that 
most  persons  do  not  think  at  all  fully  one-third  of  every 
half  second.  Between  every  two  thoughts,  almost  every 
one  goes  to  sleep  for  at  least  one-fourth  of  a  second. 


THE   SEX    PERIOD 

A  third  periodicity  is  that  concerned  with  the  sex  life 
of  man.  It  differs  greatly  in  different  men,  especially 
according  to  race,  and  concerns  their  normal  sex- func- 
tioning. 

In  both  sexes,  there  are  according  to  sex,  three  periods, 
viz. : 

1.  Prepubertal.     2.  Sex-vital.     3.  Post-sex-vital. 

The  term  of  the  first  period  ends  with  girls  according 
4o  race  and  to  health   at   various   times.     The   healthy 


208   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Italian  girl  begins  to  menstruate  at  eleven  years,  occa- 
sionally at  ten,  which  is  precocious  for  persons  of  the 
"  white  race."  The  blond  Swede  girl  comes  to  this 
change  at  eighteen  years  of  age.  But  the  usual  time  is 
twelve  or  thirteen  years.  The  most  precocious  of  all 
human  races  are  the  Senegambian  negroes,  who  become 
sexed  at  eight  or  ten  years  of  age,  even  the  boys.  The 
Scot,  the  blond  Saxon,  the  Norwegian  and  the  Swede  are 
all  altricious.  It  is  not  unusual  for  their  youths  not  to 
come  to  puberty  until  eighteen  years  of  age,  even  twenty 
years  in  some  cases. 

The  sex-vital  period  runs  for  most  American  adults 
from  twelve  to  forty-five  years  in  women  and  from  four- 
teen to  fifty-six  in  men;  but  the  upper  limits  are  very 
irregular.  Men  and  women  who  live  quiet,  unexcited, 
intellectual  lives  may  retain  their  sex-vitality  far  beyond 
these  limits. 

In  the  last  years  of  sex-vitality,  there  is  a  marked 
tendency  to  mental  depression,  which,  however,  may,  to 
a  considerable  extent,  be  controlled.  It  is  unpleasant  to 
realize  that  one  has  turned  downhill,  that  one's  best  days 
are  past,  that  youth  and  vigor  and  buoyant  hope  will 
never  be  recovered;  but  even  this  has  its  compensations. 
We  are  always  somewhat  charitable  toward  grey  hairs. 
As  long  as  the  slowing-down  of  the  machine  is  counter- 
balanced by  improvement  in  the  quality  of  the  judgment, 
as  long  as  decline  in  alertness  is  equalled  by  increase  in 
sympathy,  the  man  and  the  woman  who  teach  will  have 
fully  as  much  success  in  the  years  from  forty-five  to  sixty 
as  in  any  other  years ;  often,  they  have  more. 

In  most  cases,  however,  when  past  sixty  years  of  age, 
the  teacher  needs  to  be  viewed  kindly  and  gratefully  for 
what  has  been  achieved.  It  is  sheer  vanity  for  really 
old  men  and  women,- —  say  seventy-five  years  old, —  to 
imagine  that  their  performances  are  up  to  the  old  stand- 


PERIODICITIES  209 

ards  set  by  themselves  at  their  best.  Still,  there  are  in 
some  schools,  teachers  doing  good  service  after  three 
score  years  and  ten ;  it  is,  however,  a  service  mainly  to 
their  associates  and  to  their  institutions  rather  than  to 
their  students,  the  service  of  valuable  advice,  caution, 
counsel  to  the  less  experienced. 

In  this  three-stage  periodicity  of  the  sex-life,  sound 
hygiene  sets  up  several  standards ;  some  of  these  are  dif- 
ficult, even  painful,  for  some  persons  to  follow. 

For  most  women,  there  is  a  time  of  greatest  inner  de- 
sire to  marry;  yet  very  many  women  teachers  in  cities 
never  do  marry.  The  young  women  up  to  twenty  years, 
and  even  twenty-five,  does  not  care  much.  There  is 
plenty  of  time  yet  to  choose  a  good  man  for  a  husband. 
But  after  thirty  years  of  age,  many  a  young  woman 
wakes  up  to  the  truth  about  herself ;  and  wishes  that 
she  had  married  or  could  yet  marry.  It  is  undeniable 
that  many  women  from  thirty  to  thirty-eight  and  forty 
years  of  age  really  are  living  down  a  positive  sorrow 
because  city  teaching  has  shut  them  away  from  acquaint- 
ance with  men  eligible  to  marry.  Thereafter,  for  such 
women,  unless  they  do  marry,  through  a  period  of  six 
to  ten  years,  there  is  a  positive,  sometimes  an  openly 
displayed,  dislike,  even  antagonism  to  men  and  boys. 

Such  a  case  was  that  of  A.  L.  J.,  who  at  forty-two 
years  of  age  was  a  snarling,  unhappy,  too  heavy  "  old 
maid."  One  day,  she  awoke  to  the  truth;  that  she  was 
unhappy  because  she  had  no  husband,  no  children,  no 
home.  She  quit  public  school  teaching  that  year  and 
became  a  matron  in  a  home-school  for  orphans ;  and  has 
been  there  ten  years,  contented  and  radiating  good  cheer 
to  all. 

L.  T.  S.  at  twenty-four  years  of  age,  to  use  her  own 
statement  to  her  physician,  "  got  mad  because  most  girls 
had  husbands."     She  left  school  teaching  and  became  a 


210   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

city  newspaper  reporter.  After  two  years  in  this  field, 
she  explained  that  "  now  that  she  spent  her  life  around 
with  men,  she  was  perfectly  happy  to  live  alone,  when 
off  duty  in  her  own  rooms,  away  from  all  people,  men 
included."  In  her  case,  there  was  an  intellectual  sex- 
psychosis.  She  needed  a  more  general  companionship 
than  schools  afford. 


IS   IT   WISE   FOR   WOMEN    WHO    HAVE  LONG   BEEN 
TEACHERS   TO    MARRY? 

The  question  that  forms  the  title  here  is  often  asked, 
and  often  it  is  answered  in  a  way  to  discourage  the  ques- 
tioners. 

Case  i  was  that  of  a  lady  who  taught  till  the  age  of 
forty-one  in  a  great  city  high  school  with  marked  success. 
She  was  married  by  a  bachelor  of  fine  education  and 
character.  Their  one  child  is  today  a  teacher  of  splendid 
success  in  the  same  high  school.  This  lady  herself  is 
still  living  and  in  good  health  at  nearly  seventy  years  of 
age. 

Case  2  was  that  of  a  woman  who  at  thirty-four  years 
of  age,  after  teaching  in  rural  schools  sixteen  years,  was 
married  by  a  man  of  forty-nine,  a  banker.  They  have 
had  six  children,  of  whom  five  are  living,  and  several 
grandchildren.  The  only  peculiarity  of  the  children  is 
that  they  are  one  and  all  exceptionally  talented,  the 
youngest  being  a  combatant  troop  commander  in  the 
great  war.  The  lady  herself  is  well,  though  at  the 
Psalmist's  term  of  life. 

The  myth  to  the  effect  that  women  who  have  taught 
school  for  years  should  not  marry  lest  some  serious  dam- 
age take  place  to  their  health  and  that  teaching  forms  an 
experience  that  bars  the  hope  of  happy  marriage  is  with- 
out any  support  in  fact.     Of  course,  when  the  condi- 


PERIODICITIES  211 

tions  of  teaching  are  such  as  to  have  seriously  impaired 
the  general  health,  in  some  instances,  though  relatively 
not  many,  a  woman  should  not  marry  until  she  has  had 
some  period  of  rest  and  recuperation.  But  in  almost  all 
cases,  the  woman  teacher,  being,  as  she  usually  is,  intel- 
ligent in  her  choice  of  a  husband,  marries  well  and  estab- 
lishes a  good  home  and  raises  a  family  that  is  a  credit 
to  herself  and  to  the  nation. 

No  woman,  whether  a  teacher  or  not,'  who  has  a  normal 
ancestry  and  moderately  good,  or  better  health,  should 
shut  herself  out  from  the  hope  of  happy  marriage. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  woman  teacher  should  govern 
her  own  social  life  out  of  school  through  a  general  ambi- 
tion to  find  a  husband  and  thereby  escape  from  teaching ; 
this  in  itself  makes  her  restless  and  damages  her  health. 
To  speak  candidly,  it  lessens  the  probability  that  she 
will  marry. 

Yet  there  is  Case  3,  of  a  woman  who  after  teaching  to 
the  age  of  almost  forty  years,  married  a  man  younger 
than  herself  against  the  advice  of  friends,  but  who  has 
established  a  happy  home.  After  five  years  of  married 
life,  she  has  become  cheerful  and  healthy  and  entirely 
free  from  some  of  the  nervous  troubles  hitherto  charac- 
teristic of  her  diathesis. 

There  are  but  few  unhappy  marriages  of  teachers  not 
young  when  they  married,  for  the  sufficient  reason  that 
such  women  do  not  marry  men  of  inferior  character  and 
ability. 

This  question  of  whether  or  not  a  woman  of  ten  or 
more  years  of  experience  in  teaching  should  or  should  not 
marry  is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  question  whether  or 
not  a  married  woman  should  continue  to  teach.  There  is 
a  Case  4  upon  this  point.  Here  both  man  and  wife  teach 
and  that  in  the  same  high  school.  They  have  two  chil- 
dren.    But  the  wife  did  not  teach  until  the  younger  child 


212   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

was  seven  years  old  and  spent  her  day  in  a  primary 
grade  room  in  the  same  building  with  her  mother. 

In  general,  however,  the  experience  both  of  the  school 
executives  and  of  the  physicians  who  Irave  had  to  deal 
with  mothers  as  teachers  is  that  women  with  families 
belong  for  their  own  sakes  at  home;  and  only  the  most 
serious  of  financial  situations  should  cause  them  to  be- 
come bread-winners. 

As  to  whether  a  young  woman  who  happens  to  have 
taught  a  few  years  or  so  should  marry,  there  is  obvi- 
ously nothing  adverse  to  say  on  hygienic  grounds.  Na- 
ture intends  most  men  and  women  to  take  mates  and  to 
become  parents.  The  same  merciful  and  benignant  laws 
and  forces  that  rebuild  the  shattered  bones  of  wounded 
men  and  restore  the  almost  destroyed  tissues  after  a  ter- 
rible fever  of  months  and  that  construct  man  out  of  "  the 
dust  of  the  earth  "  seem  to  delight  in  the  repeated  marvel 
of  making  good  mothers  out  of  even  frail  girls. 

Teaching  is  the  finest  of  preparations  for  bringing  up 
children  in  the  home  successfully. 

The  whole  question  here  is  but  another  illustration  of 
the  dangers  of  permitting  a  fear-psychosis  to  become  a 
fear-neurosis.  Men  are  not  meant  to  live  by  fear  but  by 
faith,  in  the  absence  of  fact.  There  was  a  Case  5,  not  to 
be  forgotten  by  those  of  us  who  know  it.  She  was  a 
slight  little  woman  of  uncommon  beauty  and  attractive- 
ness, whom  a  young  man  wished  to  marry ;  but  she  kept 
on  teaching  for  years  and  years.  At  last,  she  overcame 
her  fears  and  did  marry  the  man.  Eight  years  later,  she 
happened  to  meet  one  who  asked  her  about  her  home. 
Her  answer  was  this, — "  I  ought  to  have  married  right 
away."  She  has  three  children,  all  of  them  healthy.  She 
had  been  "  told  "  by  some  irresponsible  persons  that  she 
had  broken  her  health  permanently  by  overwork  in  school 


PERIODICITIES  213 

and  college  and  "  must  not  think  "  of  marrying.  Fortu- 
nately for  herself,  her  husband-to-be  never  agreed  with 
the  diagnosis  of  the  "  friends." 

All  women  in  teaching  and  especially  all  women  who 
being  teachers  are  engaged  to  marry  should  have  good 
family  physicians  with  whom  they  may  discuss  according 
to  need  their  own  health  affairs. 

It  is  an  opinion  based  upon  some  experiences  of  a  con- 
crete character  that  one  cause  of  the  myth  to  the  effect 
that  veteran  woman  teachers  should  not  marry  is  the 
indubitable  fact  that  school  authorities,  both  superintend- 
ents and  board  members,  do  not  like  to  lose  good  teachers 
from  their  forces ;  therefore,  they  encourage  this  myth. 

No  one  should  marry,  whether  a  teacher  or  not,  who 
has  insufficient  confidence  in  the  sanity  of  the  universe  to 
believe  that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  those 
who  conduct  themselves  according  to  principle.  Human- 
ity needs  the  homes  set  up  by  just  such  women  as  have 
learned  much  about  life  through  the  experiences  of  the 
schoolroom. 

There  is  a  certain  pride  in  having  a  mate  that,  being 
denied,  revenges  itself  upon  the  character,  conduct  and 
health.  Otherwise,  it  is  a  common  opinion  both  of 
physicians  and  of  hygienists  that  the  advantages  of  being 
married  over  the  single  life,  alike  for  women  and  for  men, 
are  fully  offset  by  the  disadvantages.  Marriage  and  child- 
birth and  child-rearing  in  the  home  cause  in  young  wives 
and  mothers  even  higher  sickness  and  death  rates  than 
those  of  young  teachers,  bad  as  these  are;  and  many  a 
young  teacher- father  wears  out  rather  because  of  his 
home  cares  than  because  of  his  school  work. 

The  unmarried  are  unfair  to  themselves  in  not  regard- 
ing the  facts  of  the  envied  situations  of  the  married. 
At  any  rate,  the  celibate  life  is  measurelessly  better  than 


2i4   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

a  life  of  marriage  to  any  unfit  mate, — -than  which  in- 
deed nothing  is  more  destructive  to  health  and  to  hap- 
piness. 

There  are  several  marked  tendencies  among  women 
teachers  regarding  marriage  that  are  of  hygienic  concern. 

One  is  a  tendency  to  long  courtships  prior  to  marriage 
in  order  to  save  money  with  which  to  start  the  home. 
In  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  a  long  courtship  endured  by  a 
woman  while  teaching  school  is  injurious  to  her  health. 
This  is  conspicuously  true  when  it  involves  sitting  up 
late  nights  with  one's  lover.  Such  a  courtship  often 
leads  to  poor  school  work  and  to  such  difficulties  with 
the  school  authorities  as  to  induce  mental  anxiety  and 
physical  overstrain.  From  the  hygienic  point  of  view, 
a  woman  who  foresees  that  her  future  marriage  is  far 
in  the  future  should  not  see  her  lover  more  than  one 
evening  a  week,  preferably  Fridays  and  holidays.  Nor 
should  she  write  daily  long  letters  to  him,  a  proceeding 
suitable  only  for  fiancees  with  nothing  else  to  do,  and 
entirely  free  from  daily  toil  for  livelihood. 

A  second  tendency  for  women  teachers  is  to  marry 
widowers  with  families ;  that  is,  to  become  second  wives. 
To  this,  the  woman  teacher  feels  an  instinctive  resist- 
ance that  often  makes  her  irritable  at  school ;  especially 
because  other  women  are  very  apt  to  make  unpleasant 
comments  accordingly.  In  such  cases,  generally  it  is  the 
woman  teacher  who  delays  the  marriage;  which  is  un- 
fortunate for  all  concerned,  including  her  own  peace  of 
mind. 

Hygiene  is  not  wholly  an  affair  of  the  body,  a  series 
of  problems  in  physiology;  it  has  its  definite  psychologi- 
cal aspects.  Some  day,  women  as  a  sex  will  wake  up  to 
the  truth  that  in  respect  to  marriage  a  fairly  universal 
rule  of  wisdom  is  "  When  in  doubt,  don't." 

Incidentally,  it  may  be  said  that  an  intelligent  woman, 


PERIODICITIES  215 

engaged  to  marry,  will  not  try  to  see  her  finance  when 
she  is  either  tired  out  or  ill.  It  is  a  fairly  universal  rule 
of  wisdom  to  avoid  companionship  with  others;  love, 
business,  anything  whatever,  when  really  fit  only  for 
solitude  and  sleep. 


PERIODICITIES   AND  DIAGNOSIS 

Periodicity  is  one  of  the  several  keys  to  health ;  and  in 
none  of  its  hygienic  implications,  is  it  more  significant 
than  in  the  emptying  of  the  bowel  and  of  the  bladder. 
While  variation  has  its  uses  in  respect  to  some  bodily 
functions,  under  ideal  conditions  the  bowels  would  move 
with  clocklike  regularity  at  exactly  the  same  hour  at  least 
once  daily  from  year  end  to  year  end  and  urination 
would  be  equally  regular  at  least  three  times  daily.  In 
these  matters  of  excretion,  regularity  is  essential  to  con- 
tinued health.  Dreadful  illnesses  and  even  deaths  have 
frequently  resulted  from  failures  of  bowel  and  bladder 
to  release  their  contents.  The  records  of  pathology  upon 
this  point  are  amazingly  extensive ;  but  they  do  not  belong 
in  books  of  hygiene  save  in  reference  as  warnings. 

There  are  healthy  persons  who  have  lived  to  great  ages, 
though  having  regularly  several  movements  of  the  bowel 
every  day ;  and  there  are  such  persons  who  have  urinated 
regularly  many  times  each  day  and  even  several  times 
each  night.  But  irregular  and  infrequent  excretion  in- 
variably shortens  life  with  noteworthy  decisiveness. 

Every  good  general  physician  relies  for  general  diag- 
nosis upon  these  few  signs,  viz. — 

1     Tongue  and  throat. 

2.  Pulse  and  blood  pressure. 

3    Evacuations. 

In  nine  office  calls  in  ten.  these  tell  the  physician  all 
that  he  needs  to  know  ;  and  in  three  house  calls  out  of 


216        THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

four,  they  tell  him  why  the  patient  is  unable  to  visit  his 
office. 

Pulse,  blood  pressure,  and  excretion  are  all  functions 
largely  of  periodicity. 

The  man  whose  mind  victimizes  his  body  is  the  one 
who  is  constipated  or  who  has  urinary  irregularities.  In 
the  strictest  of  physiological  system,  every  book  and  paper 
on  hygiene  should  begin  with  the  statement, —  More  im- 
portant than  diet  or  even  sleep  is  regularity  of  bowel 
and  bladder  movement.  Every  person  with  any  inclina- 
tion to  visit  the  toilet  should  immediately  do  so;  and  all 
civilized  buildings  and  procedures  should  be  arranged 
accordingly. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  teacher  who  under  peculiar 
social  surveillance  one  day  felt  unable  to  leave  the  room 
for  fourteen  hours  continuously.  An  illness  resulted  that 
lasted  six  months ;  and  life  was  saved  only  by  an  opera- 
tion. Her  school  was  being  visited  by  several  commit- 
tees anxious  to  inspect  her  school  exhibit;  there  were 
always  visitors;  and  she  was  too  modest  to  ask  to  be 
excused. 

Excitement,  false  modesty,  pressure  of  duty,  oversleep- 
ing, wrong  diet,  all  these  affect  the  periodicity  of  high 
strung,  sensitive  teachers,  who  must,  therefore,  deliber- 
ately plan  time  and  opportunity  for  perfect  regularity 
for  these  functions.  The  particular  hours  are  much  less 
important  than  following  the  principle  of  regularity.  But 
there  is  no  better  time  for  the  daily  bowel  movement  than 
in  the  course  of  rising,  exercising,  bathing  and  dressing 
for  the  first  morning  meal.  The  earlier  in  the  day  gen- 
erally the  better. 

Those  who  have  irregular  or  infrequent  bowel  move- 
ments and  those  who  urinate  more  than  a  dozen  times  each 
twenty-four  hours  require  medical  advice. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
CARE  OF  THE  TEETH 

ORAL  hygiene  has  become  one  of  the  popular  themes 
of  health  betterment.  The  school  teacher  has  a 
throat  usually  filled  with  dust  and  often  infected  with 
the  germs  of  disease ;  and  tired  from  too  much  vocaliza- 
tion. He  has  also  peripheral  nerves  robbed  of  the  nor- 
mal blood  supply  because  of  the  over-action  of  the  brain 
and  spinal  cord  from  the  necessities  of  school  instruction 
and  discipline.  The  fingers,  the  toes,  the  teeth,  the  eyes 
and  ears  of  teachers  often  ache  from  want  of  blood  irri- 
gation. 

In  consequence,  teachers  have  an  excessive  tendency 
to  tooth  and  gum  anemia,  and  therefore  to  dental  caries 
and  to  gum  pyorrhea.  This  general  tendency  to  tooth 
and  gum  deterioration,  can,  however,  be  distinctly  coun- 
teracted by  the  exertion  of  special  care  in  tooth-brushing. 

Few  persons  brush  their  teeth  and  gums  properly  or 
sufficiently. 

The  toothbrush  should  be  soft  or  medium,  never  hard. 
Its  bristles  should  not  be  long,  but  short.  It  should  be 
cleaned  in  very  hot  water  with  good  soap  (not  tooth- 
paste) at  least  once  daily. 

The  teeth  should  be  brushed  up  and  down  rather  than 
aero 

The  gums  should  be  thoroughly  brushed. 

The  total  time  needed  per  day  to  keep  an  ordinary  set 
of  teeth  in  first  class  condition  so  far  as  concerns  oral 
cleanliness  and  gum  exercise  is  eight  minutes.  Prefer- 
ably, one  should  brush  the  teeth  and  gums  three  times 


218   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

a  day;  invariably,  at  least  twice  a  day.  Unless  taken 
violently  ill,  one  should  never  go  to  bed  without  thor- 
oughly 

1.  Brushing  the  teeth, 

2.  Brushing  the  gums, 

3.  Gargling  the  throat,  and 

4.  Drinking  a  glass  of  cold  water. 

Anyone  who  has  the  misfortune  to  wear  a  plate  of 
false  teeth  should  thoroughly  clean  them  at  least  every 
night  and  keep  them  overnight  in  a  glass  of  sterilized 
water.  Wearing  them  at  night  (as  some  do)  is  exceed- 
ingly unhygienic ;  and  it  has  caused  more  than  one  death 
by  strangulation. 

As  for  the  various  dentifrices,  some  are  really  good, 
some  unobjectionable,  and  some  bad. 

Grit,  free  alkali,  sugar  and  saccharine,  strong  flavors, 
are  all  bad  in  a  dentifrice;  which  should  be  perfectly 
smooth,  neutral,  almost,  tasteless,  slightly  antiseptic,  and 
made  of  pure  soap  and  little  else. 

For  a  mouth  wash,  boracic  acid,  much  diluted,  is  good. 
Some  patent  preparations  also  are  good. 

Castile  soap  and  weak  boric  acid  are  quite  good  enough 
for  tooth  cleansing  and  mouth  rinsing  in  most  cases. 

A  decade  or  so  ago,  bridges  and  crowns  were  popular 
dental  devices ;  but  the  scientific  study  and  treatment  of 
pyorrhea  has  convinced  most  modern  dentists  that  bridges 
are  undesirable.  They  do  well  for  a  few  years;  but 
usually  they  end  by  destroying  the  few  good  teeth  to 
which  they  are  fastened.  A  partial  plate  is  far  more 
easily  cleaned. 

PYORRHEA 

Pyorrhea  (or  "  Rigg's  Disease  ")  causes  more  teeth 
to  be  lost  than  does  dental  caries  in  all  its  forms.     It  at- 


CARE  OF  THE  TEETH  219 

the  gums  of  perfectly  sound  teeth  as  well  as  those 
of  decayed  teeth. 

There  was  the  case  of  a  man  who  had  a  persistent  and 
incurable  abscess  in  his  lower  front  jaw.  Four  sound 
teeth  were  taken  out;  but  the  discharge  continued.  He 
was  examined  by  two  dentists,  one  family  physician  and 
one  expert  surgeon,  all  of  whom  agreed  upon  a  diagnosis 
to  the  effect  that  he  had  a  necrosis  of  the  jaws.  However, 
he  went  to  the  X-ray  examiner,  who  upon  photograph- 
ing the  jaw  discovered  that  his  left  lower  stomach  tooth 
had  a  root  extending  at  a  right  angle  to  the  very  middle  of 
his  front  jaw ;  upon  the  end  of  this  root  was  an  abscess 
that  the  dentist  easily  reached  by  cutting  through  the 
gum.  The  root  of  this  peculiar  tooth  was  then  filled. 
The  trouble,  therefore,  was  not  pyorrhea;  nor  was  it 
necrosis ;  but  it  was  a  simple  abscess. 

The  prophylaxis  against  both  dental  caries  and  pyor- 
rhea is  to  keep  the  mouth  and  teeth  free  of  germs. 

The  care  of  dental  cavities  belongs  in  surgery,  not  in 
hygiene.  It  pays  to  get  the  teeth  into  good  order  at 
any  cost  and  then  to  visit  a  dentist  at  least  once  every 
three  months  to  see  that  they  are  in  good  condition. 
When  one  cannot  honestly  afford  dentistry, —  when  to 
make  a  dental  bill  is  really  fraudulent, —  it  is  far  better 
to  have  a  badly  decayed  tooth  drawn  than  to  allow  it  to 
remain  in  the  mouth  poisoning  the  tonsils  and  infecting 
the  entire  tract  of  the  alimentary  canal.  A  decaying 
tooth  is  an  enemy  to  the  health  of  the  entire  body.  The 
pus  from  a  suppurating  gum  or  from  a  discharging  tooth 
abscess  is  also  an  enemy  to  the  general  health.  It  has 
cost  many  a  man  the  eyesight  of  one  or  both  eyes.  To  an 
infected  tooth,  his  family  physician  charged  the  death  of 
Colonel  Roosevelt  as  the  direct  cause  of  his  heart  failure 
at  the  end. 

Pyorrhea  first  displays  itself  in  redness,  swelling  and 


220   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

soreness  of  the  gums.  As  a  general  rule,  one  should  not 
brush  bodily  surfaces  that  bleed, —  but  the  only  preventive 
of  further  development  of  pyorrhea  beyond  this  stage 
is  gum  brushing  whether  the  gums  bleed  or  not.  They 
need  fresh  blood ;  there  must  be  set  up  a  positive  circula- 
tion to  clean  out  the  dead  tissue  and  the  poisonous  blood 
cells.  After  thorough  brushing,  rinse  the  mouth  with  a 
very  dilute  antiseptic.  ("  French  Mixture  "  is  good ;  this 
is  not  a  patent  medicine  but  standard.)  After  some 
bleeding,  the  next  stage  will  be  shrinkage  of  the  gums. 
This  is  a  sign  that  the  treatment  is  doing  good. 

There  is  a  notion  that  tooth-brushing  tears  the  gum 
away  from  the  teeth.  A  sound  gum  was  never  torn  away 
from  a  sound  tooth  by  any  wet  tooth  brush  used  with 
the  bristles  toward  the  tooth.  When  a  toothbrush  causes 
the  gum  to  pull  away  from  the  tooth,  it  is  because  the 
gum  is  diseased  usually  from  pyorrhea,  sometimes  from  a 
gum  abscess,  which  may  not  have  been  caused  by  pyor- 
rhea but  otherwise  as  from  decayed  food. 

In  its  early  stages,  pyorrhea  can  be  cured  by  gum 
brushing  and  mouth  hygiene, —  as  every  competent  dentist 
knows.  It  is  one  of  the  strangest  of  diseases.  It  may 
attack  simply  one  side  of  the  face,  or  one  jaw ;  or  even 
one  tooth,  and  never  spread.  It  is,  however,  especially 
active  against  the  lower  front  teeth,  and  the  wisdom 
teeth. 

One  prophylactic  measure  of  high  importance  is  to 
keep  the  necks  of  the  teeth  perfectly  free  from  tartar. 
This  may  require  the  efforts  of  a  dentist  to  scrape  the 
teeth  where  the  tartar  has  already  started. 

Invalids  and  child-bearing  women  are  peculiarly  liable 
to  pyorrhea. 

In  one  instance,  two  teachers  roomed  together.  One 
had  a  poor  lot  of  teeth  and  pyorrhea ;  the  other  had  per- 
fect teeth.     At  the  end  of  six  months,  the  second  teacher 


CARE  OF  THE  TEETH  221 

developed  one  of  the  worst  types  of  cases ;  all  the  back 
teeth,  upper  and  lower,  were  affected,  and  suddenly  no 
less  than  twelve  abscesses  developed.  Heart  failure  also 
appeared  from  focal  infection.  At  this  stage,  both  physi- 
cian and  dentist  were  called  in, —  and  for  more  than  a 
year,  the  very  life  of  this  young  woman  was  in  danger. 
It  required  two  months  in  a  sanitarium  and  six  months 
of  rest  to  restore  even  fair  health.  Though  the  teeth 
were  saved,  after  two  years,  the  heart  was  still  feeble; 
and  one  valve  seriously  impaired. 

Keep  away  from  every  person  who  has  pyorrhea.  Phy- 
sicians debate  whether  or  not  it  is  hereditary ;  but  every 
medical  man  knows  that  it  is  actively  communicable  upon 
the  breath,  upon  towels  and  upon  insufficiently  washed 
dishes. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
CARE  OF  THE  EYES 

THE  eyes  of  teachers  are  subjected  to  strains  of 
three  kinds,  which  give  rise  to  various  aches,  pains 
and  diseases,  both  special  and  general. 

Strains  of  the  first  kind  are  due  to  overuse  of  the  eyes 
in  reading  the  papers  of  the  pupils  and  the  books  necessary 
for  lesson-preparation,  usually  by  artificial  light  in  the 
evening. 

Strains  of  the  second  kind  are  due  to  living  in  a  school- 
room six  or  seven  hours  daily  with  light  often  straight 
in  the  face  or  perhaps  upon  one  side,  usually  the  right. 

Strains  of  the  third  kind  are  due  to  spending  too  many 
hours  a  day  using  the  eyes  in  strong  light  and  too  few  at 
night  in  absolute  darkness  and  sleep. 

Nature  never  made  many  eyes  for  any  such  use  as 
most  teachers  imagine  theirs  were  designed  for. 

What  damage  is  done  to  anyone's  eyes  by  these  several 
strains  depends,  first,  upon  the  nature  of  one's  eyes ;  and, 
second,  upon  the  severity  of  the  strains. 

It  will  pay  anyone  whether  a  teacher  or  not  to  take  a 
good  look  at  one's  own  eyes  and  perhaps  then  to  have 
them  investigated  by  a  thoroughly  competent  and  ex- 
perienced oculist, —  a  trained  physician  with  the  specialty 
of  eye-treatment,  no  mere  optician,  optometrist  or  jeweler 
who  fits  glasses. 

Anyone  who  wishes  to  get  a  line  upon  one's  own  eyes 
will  note  these  points,  viz. — 

I.  Whether  there  is  any  inflammation  whatever  of  the 

222 


CARE  OF  THE  EYES  223 

cornea,  which  should  be  hard-boiled  egg  (or  china)  white. 
A  blood-shot  or  even  blood-streaked  eye  is  not  in  good 
condition. 

2.  What  is  the  distance  between  the  eyes  compared  with 
the  length  of  the  face  ?  This  gives  a  means  of  estimating 
the  strain  upon  the  external  eye-muscles.  Persons  with 
eyes  very  close  together  or  with  eyes  very  wide  apart 
should  not  do  much  reading  of  any  kind. 

3.  The  color  of  the  eyes.  This  is  determined  by  the 
blood-current  with  or  without  direct  local  pigmentation. 
Albino,  grey  and  blue  eyes  have  no  secondary  or  brown 
pigmentation.  Yellow,  green  (cat)  and  hazel,  brown, 
brown  black,  and  so-called  "  black  "  eyes  have  an  increas- 
ing amount  of  secondary  pigmentation  respectively.  The 
lighter  the  eye,  the  less  it  can  stand  the  light.  Large, 
light,  normal  eyes  see  exceedingly  well ;  small,  dark  eyes 
are  protected  from  seeing  too  well.  Light  eyes  are  easily 
tired ;  small  dark  eyes  wear  well.  Most  teachers  have 
middle  color  eyes, —  dark  blues  and  light  browns ;  tech- 
nically known  as  6  or  7  in  the  scale  of  color  up  to  10. 
The  albino  eye  is  pink,  or  even  bright  red.  It  requires 
smoked  glasses  in  sunlight.  It  is  not  light  blue,  as  some 
imagine.     It  has  no  pigment  whatever. 

4.  The  size  of  the  eyeballs  and  of  the  pupils.  The 
larger,  the  weaker,  the  less  able  to  stand  wear  and  tear. 
But  small  eyes  should  not  be  tormented  with  details, 
whether  they  are  light,  middle  or  dark. 

Only  an  oculist  knows  for  sure  whether  one  is  far- 
sighted,  normal-sighted,  or  near-sighted,  or  whether  the 
poor  vision  is  due  to  some  other  defect.  Only  the  eye- 
doctor  knows  for  sure  whether  one  is  esopheric,  exophoric, 
heterophoric  or  normal  in  the  swing  of  the  eye-muscles. 
And  only  such  a  specialist  can  tell  for  sure  whether  at 
forty  years  of  age  or  older  one  is  beginning  to  suffer 
from  old  age  of  the  eye, —  presbyopia. 


224   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

But  any  person  of  physiological  inclination  can  tell 
whether  or  not  he  had  better  consult  an  oculist.  It  should 
be  easy  to  read  the  print  of  this  book  (ten-point)  at  just 
14  inches  from  the  eyes.  It  should  be  easy  to  tell  at  a 
glance  c  from  e  and  W  from  M  and  Z.  „  O  should  look 
perfectly  oval.  Each  eye  should,  of  course,  be  tested 
alone,  with  the  other  shut. 

And  one's  head  should  not  ache  from  reading  even  two 
hours  at  a  stretch. 

The  results  of  these  several  varieties  of  eyestrains  in- 
clude headaches,  stomach-nausea,  mental  depression,  di- 
rect eye-pains,  and  dislike  of  school-teaching. 

Anyone,  whether  wearing  glasses  or  not,  does  well  to 
understand  and  to  practise  both  massage  and  hydrotherapy 
for  the  eyes.  If  possible,  prevent  overstrain.  Keep  the 
brim  of  the  hat  down  over  the  eyes  when  facing  sun- 
light or  any  other  strong  light.  Do  not  use  a  very  strong 
light  when  reading.  Do  not  stay  till  eleven  o'clock  p.  m. 
in  a  brilliantly  lighted  hall.  Do  not  read  fine  print  at  all. 
Never  spend  five  consecutive  hours  reading  the  papers 
of  pupils.  These  are  all  good  rules.  Keep  out  of  strong 
winds.  Wear  blue  or  smoked  glasses  when  there  is  sun- 
shine on  snow.  There  are  more  good  rules.  Neverthe- 
less, the  eyes  of  teachers  are  often  strained. 

A  gentle,  firm  massage  with  clean-washed  hands  all 
around  the  eye-orbit  and  over  the  back  of  the  neck  and 
upper  spine  often  helps  tired  eye-muscles. 

Hot  towels  upon  the  closed  eyelids,  the  face  and  fore- 
head often  help.  The  temperature  should  be  at  least 
no°  and  better  I25°-I40°  and  even  more. 

There  were  two  cases  of  severe  eyestrain  with  snow- 
blindness.  One  treatment  used  a  dark  room,  lukewarm 
water,  and  drastic  food  regulation.  The  patient  was 
cured  in  three  months.  The  other  treatment  used  the 
dark  room,  very  hot  water —  1500 — no  food,  plenty  of 


CARE  OF  THE  EYES  225 

lemonade  and  orangeade.  The  patient  recovered  in  ten 
days.  In  each  case,  the  eyes  were  tomato-red  with  light- 
phobia.  Each  physician  supplemented  the  above  treat- 
ment with  one  application  of  the  artificial  leech,  to  re- 
duce the  blood  congestion.  Two  cases  do  not  settle  such 
a  question ;  but  the  best  oculists  today  never  use  water 
upon  the  eyes  at  less  than  980.  The  ice  treatment  has 
been  utterly  rejected. 

The  eye  is  both  a  delicate  and  a  tough  organ;  internally 
exceedingly  delicate,  externally  tough.  It  will  stand  un- 
der the  eyelid  great  heat,  and  will  clear  up  congestions 
when  so  stimulated. 

Esophoria,  which  is  due  to  having  too  short  internal 
eye  muscles,  produces  both  epileptic  fits  and  mental  de- 
rangements. Mild  cases  are  relieved  by  prism  glasses; 
but  severe  cases  require  that  the  muscles  be  buttonholed 
and  lengthened  by  surgery. 

Some  headaches  are  relieved  by  plunging  the  head  into 
cold  water  and  reducing  the  temperature  thereby.  The 
eyes  must  be  kept  tightly  closed.  For  the  final  plunge  of 
the  head  use  water  at  ioo°  and  open  the  eyes.  Rub 
head,  neck  and  face  but  not  too  close  about  the  eyes 
thereafter  with  a  coarse  towel.  It  is  unfortunate  that 
many  women  because  of  their  heavy  heads  of  hair  are 
unable  to  use  this  treatment;  yet  a  wet  compress  will 
afford  them  some  relief. 

It  is  highly  important  to  avoid  taking  cold  in  the  eyes  in 
winter  winds,  which  do  as  much  harm  as  summer  sun- 
shine to  the  eyes.  Never  sit  on  the  sea  sand  with  head 
and  eyes  unprotected  facing  upon  the  sunny  sand  and 
sea. 

When  something  seems  to  have  gotten  into  the  eye, 
three  hypotheses  may  be  ventured,  viz. — 

1.  The  eye  is  slightly  inflamed,  and  some  capillary  is 
making  trouble. 


226   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

2.  Something  extraneous  is  in  the  eye ;  but  it  will  soon 
dissolve  away  or  slide  toward  the  tear  duct. 

3.  The  something  is  hard,  has  cut  into  the  tissue,  and 
will  stay  there  until  removed. 

The  remedy  for  the  first  condition  is, —  hot  water  com- 
press and  absolute  rest  for  the  eye  in  the  dark. 

The  remedy  for  the  second  condition  is  patient  wait- 
ing,—  with  or  without  syringing  with  hot  water. 

But  the  remedy  for  the  third  condition  is  often  diffi- 
cult to  find.  It  is  indeed  often  hard  for  the  patient  him- 
self to  discover  where  the  hard  particle  is  and  what  it  is. 
Soft  coal  melts  away ;  but  a  hard  coal  cinder  does  not.  A 
very  sharp  splinter  of  steel  may  so  imbed  itself  in  the 
eye  as  to  cause  serious  inflammation  and  finally  to  result 
in  the  loss  of  the  eye. 

When  blowing  the  nose  and  dashing  hot  water  into 
the  eye  do  no  good  in  dislodging  the  foreign  particle,  the 
safe  thing  to  do  is  to  see  a  physician  immediately.  When 
it  is  impossible  to  secure  a  physician,  roll  some  cotton 
upon  a  round  stick,  wet  it  with  glycerin  or  some  other 
emollient  and  let  a  friend  roll  back  the  eyelid  and  explore 
and  try  to  wipe  out  the  particle;  but  the  very  greatest 
care  must  be  used  lest  the  foreign  matter  cut  still  deeper 
into  the  cornea.  (The  competent  physician  uses  a  camel's 
hair  brush  or  the  equivalent.)  When  the  cotton  ball 
fails,  bandage  up  the  eye  in  a  clean  handkerchief  around 
the  forehead,  and  travel  quietly  until  a  physician  is 
found. 

Many  an  eye  has  been  lost  because  it  was  fooled  with 
by  ignorant  persons.  It  is  far  worse  to  lose  an  eye  than 
an  arm  or  leg, —  especially  for  a  woman. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 
CARE  OF  THE  EARS 

CONTRARY  to  the  popular  impression,  the  ear  is 
more  liable  to  troubles  than  the  eye.  It  is  open 
to  every  kind  of  infection  from  the  throat  and  via  the 
throat  to  infections  from  the  nose,  from  the  mouth  and 
from  the  stomach.  It  is  also,  of  course,  open  to  attacks 
from  without  through  the  meatus. 

Deafness  is  more  common  than  blindness,  though  no 
doubt  less  serious  in  a  civilization  like  ours,  which  ap- 
peals more  to  the  eye  than  to  the  ear. 

One  of  the  most  common  causes  of  ear-trouble  is  blow- 
ing the  nose  hard  with  both  nostrils  obstructed  by  a  tightly 
held  handkerchief.  When  there  is  a  "  cold  in  the  head," 
any  catarrhal  trouble,  or  any  infection  of  the  throat,  the 
direct  result  of  this  is  that  some  mucus  is  forced  back 
into  the  ear-passages,  causing  at  least  temporary  deaf- 
ness. A  clogged  nostril  should  be  sprayed  with  a  warm, 
mild,  antiseptic  solution ;  not  douched.  Never  use  a  cur- 
rent of  water  in  the  nasal  passages.  Such  a  procedure 
may  drive  an  infection  into  the  facial  bones  and  cause 
abscesses,  eye-disease,  and  death. 

When  one  cannot  spray  the  nose,  hawk  the  phlegm  back 
into  the  open  throat  and  discharge  it  into  a  handkerchief 
or  into  a  paper  towel.  Even  if  it  slips  down  into  the 
stomach,  it  will  do  far  less  harm  than  in  the  ear-passages. 

A  handkerchief  is  well  enough  to  dry  tears  from  \\ 
ing  and  to  receive  sputum  in  an  emergency.     And  may, 
of  course,  be  used  harmlessly  when  the  nasal  passages  are 
healthy 

227 


228   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

A  common  cause  of  trouble  to  the  ear  is  the  insertion 
of  some  foreign  substances  like  a  pea  or  a  pebble  or  the 
settling  in  it  of  an  insect  such  as  a  fly  or  a  bee.  Oc- 
casionally a  wad  of  cotton  gets  packed  into  the  ear  and 
is  allowed  to  remain  until,  being  hardened  with  earwax, 
it  causes  positive  trouble.  The  great  size  of  objects  found 
in  the  ear  and  the  queer  presence  of  even  living  insects 
are  perhaps  incredible  to  non-medical  persons.  It  is  by 
no  means  unusual  for  a  surgeon  to  find  it  necessary  to 
cut  in  from  the  outside  in  order  to  reach  perhaps  a  bean 
that  has  swelled  and  even  germinated  in  the  ear  or  a 
bumblebee  lured  to  the  point  by  the  earwax. 

Many  a  patient  who  has  imagined  that  he  has  kept  his 
ears  clean  by  washing  them  always  in  the  course  of  his 
weekly  or  semi-weekly  bath  has  nevertheless  a  mass  of 
hard  earwax  that  only  an  otologist  can  properly  remove. 
The  usual  symptoms  are  ringing  in  the  ears  and  local 
pressure. 

While  no  nose  should  ever  be  syringed  or  douched,  there 
is  no  especial  harm  from  syringing  the  ear  with  warm 
water  or  with  a  warm  normal  salt  solution  (980 ;  3  per 
cent.  salt).  When  after  a  bath  the  ears  seem  dry  inside, 
it  does  no  harm  to  wipe  them  out  with  a  cotton  swab 
moistened  with  goose  oil  or  aseptic  vaseline  or  aseptic 
cold  cream.  But  cotton  should  never  be  kept  in  the  ear 
unless  prescribed  by  a  physician. 

The  notion  that  it  hurts  the  ears  to  swim  on  one's  back 
or  under  water  springs  from  experiences  of  ear-infection 
due  to  foul  water.  Heavy  surf -bathing  may  jar  the  ear- 
passages  ;  but  pure  salt  water  or  pure  fresh  water  of  itself 
never  does  a  healthy  ear  any  harm.  Of  course,  after 
bathing,  when  one's  ears  are  full  of  water,  this  may  be 
shaken  out  by  shaking  the  head  or  may  be  allowed  to  run 
out,  first,  from  one  ear  and  then  from  the  other  by  lying 


CARE  OF  THE  EARS  229 

upon  the  sides  of  the  body.  Never  press  the  water  fur- 
ther into  the  ear  by  inserting  the  finger  or  thumb  or 
anything  else  into  the  ear  when  water  is  present. 

Indeed,  this  rule  is  far  stronger.  Never  insert  into  any 
ear  anything  harder  and  stifFer  than  the  corner  of  a  coarse 
towel  or  a  soft  roll  of  absorbent  cotton;  never.  Ear- 
spoons  are  utterly  taboo.  They  are  far  worse  upon  the 
ear  even  than  goosequill  toothpicks  are  upon  the  gums. 
These  are  instruments  solely  for  ear-dootors ;  who  do  not, 
however,  use  them  once  in  a  decade! 

The  large  city  is  a  bad  place  for  the  hearing.  All 
of  us  are  well  aware  that  too  much  light  is  very  bad  for 
the  eyes,  but  we  fail  to  notice  that  too  much  noise  is  quite 
as  bad  for  the  ears.  Silence  is  as  good  for  the  ears  as 
darkness  is  for  the  eyes.  We  need  quiet  bedrooms  as  well 
as  dark  ones. 

The  man  or  woman  who  snores  is  as  much  a  hygienic 
sinner  as  one  who  keeps  a  light  in  a  bedroom  all  night. 

Put  out  all  lights. 

Shut  off  all  sounds. 

These  two  rules  are  essential  to  good  sleep. 

Roaring  at  a  sleeper  to  waken  him  is  as  vicious  a  pro- 
ceeding as  sticking  a  lighted  candle  close  to  his  eyes.  In- 
deed, it  is  worse  and  from  two  causes.  First,  eyes  have 
lids  but  the  ears  have  no  shutters.  Second,  an  attack 
upon  the  eyes  with  sudden  light  pounds  upon  the  lobes  of 
the  cerebellum  at  the  back  of  the  head  where  the  brain  is 
characteristically  large ;  but  an  attack  upon  the  ears  with 
sudden  noise  pounds  upon  the  far  lighter  areas  of  the 
cerebrum  about  the  ears  where  the  brain  is  character- 
lv  very  sensitive. 

One  can  listen  too  much  as  well  as  see  too  much.  Of 
as  many  teachers  it  may  truthfully  be  said  that  "  Their 
ears  are  overstrained  and  have  given  out "  as  of  others  it 


23o   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

may  be  said  that  "  Their  eyes  have  played  out  from  too 
much  work,"  but  seldom  is  the  first  remark  ever  heard 
outside  of  the  physician's  rooms. 

Exercising  the  external  muscles  of  the  throat  and  neck 
and  massage  about  the  ears  often  helps  ear-neuralgias  and 
anemias.  Hot  water  bags  also  do  good.  But  silence 
comes  first.  Do  not  sit  and  talk  and  talk  when  tired  or 
to  persons  who  are  tired.  A  joyous  silence  is  golden 
when  the  brain  aches  from  too  much  listening  to  noises 
and  to  voices. 

For  the  care  of  the  ears,  remember  that  one  should 
form  the  habit  of  sleeping  part  of  the  night  upon  one 
side  and  part  upon  the  other.  The  habit  of  turning  from 
side  to  side  several  times  in  sleep  also  assists  in  prevent- 
ing spinal  curvatures.  The  ears  benefit  much  more 
quickly  than  the  eyes  from  properly  active  circulation  of 
blood  in  the  neck. 


**v 


CHAPTER  XXX 

CARE  OF  THE  VOICE  AND  THROAT 

"/CLERGYMAN'S  throat"  is  an  affliction  of  many 
V>  teachers.  The  typical  case  of  the  clergyman 
whose  voice  and  throat  have  given  out  is  that  he  has 
preached  and  prayed  in  public  perhaps  several  hours  on 
Sunday  and  as  many  hours  all  through  the  week ;  and  then 
talked  conversationally  with  his  family  and  his  parishion- 
ers from  morning  to  evening  every  day.  Real  orators  do 
not  have  .  "  clergyman's  throat  "  for  several  reasons. 
First,  they  have  good,  strong  throats  as  a  foundation  for 
their  oratory.  Second,  they  do  almost  all  their  talking 
with  their  diaphragms  and  abdominal  muscles  —  and  al- 
most none  with  their  throat  walls,  tongues,  and  lips. 
Third,  they  are  silent  most  of  the  time, —  listeners,  not 
conversationalists. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  man  teacher  whose  throat  and 
voice  were  worn  to  shreds  and  whispers.  He  talked  on 
the  average  in  day  and  evening  school,  eight  and  nine 
hours  daily ;  and  he  talked  at  home  with  his  family.  His 
dan  prescribed  throat  massage  and  head  duckings  to 
cool  the  speech  center  upon  the  left  front  of  his  brain, — 
which  was  usually  hot.  The  case  got  worse.  Though  he 
had  good  general  health,  his  voice  fell  to  a  whisper,  and 
there  was  a  continuous  acute  inflammation  of  the  entire 
throat, —  fauces,  pharynx  and  larynx.  Medicaments  did 
no  good. 

ten  the  physician  put  the  man  into  bed   for  three 
days, —  forbade  anyone  to  see  him  except  Jo  bring  food. 

231 


232   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

and  forbade  also  his  talking  one  word  more  than  was 
necessary.  When  he  got  up  on  the  fourth  day,  he  ordered 
him  to  stop  his  night  work,  to  reduce  as  much  as  he  could 
his  oral  instruction,  to  drop  his  Sunday  School  class,  to 
listen  at  home,  not  talk ;  and  to  spend  twelve  hours  a  day 
in  bed. 

In  six  weeks,  this  teacher's  sore  throat  was  well,  and 
he  had  learned  important  new  habits  for  the  rest  of  his 
life. 

Those  who  indulge  overmuch  in  throat  exercises  and 
massage  often  stir  the  thyroid  glands  to  excessive  activ- 
ity. The  best  of  all  exercises  for  a  weak  voice  is  deep 
breathing.  One  who  does  overmuch  body-bending  and 
abdominal  work  stirs  up  the  suprarenal  glands  and  gets 
too  much  waked  up  again, —  which  is  the  very  thing  for  a 
voice-weary  class  teacher  to  avoid. 

Throat  gargles, —  with  warm  fresh  water  or  warm  sea 
water, —  are  good  morning  and  evening  for  tired  voices. 
Gargle  in  all  two  or  three  minutes.  Never  use  strong 
antiseptics,  which  are  bad  for  the  vocal  cords  and  for  the 
epithelial  tissues. 

Best  of  all  for  the  voice  is  placing  it  right, —  finding 
just  that  pitch  where  the  least  fatigue  is  felt.  This  re- 
quires good  hearing  and  sense  of  pitch  and  both  physical 
and  moral  self-control.  Anger,  hate  and  fear  have  horri- 
ble effects  upon  the  voice.  Anger  tears  it,  hate  grinds  it, 
fear  robs  it  of  the  normal  blood  supply.  Anger  forces 
adrenalin  up  into  the  delicate  tissues  and  engorges  them 
with  blood ;  hate  holds  the  throat  rigid ;  fear  impoverishes 
the  throat. 

The  voice  is  properly  sounded  just  back  of  the  front 
teeth.  The  best  speakers  and  the  best  singers,  male 
and  female,  alike,  have  their  speaking  and  singing  articula- 
tion and  enunciation  at  the  tip  of  the  tongue  upon  the 
hard  palate  and  shaped  by  the  lips.     A  few  persons  are 


CARE  OF  THE  VOICE  AND  THROAT      233 

born  to  speak  so;  a  few  more  learn  this  speech  from 
their  mothers ;  but  most  persons  must  be  taught  at  school 
and  must  practise  by  themselves  at  home. 

It  is  truly  astonishing  and  most  delightful  to  listen  to 
a  man  or  woman  on  the  public  platform  who  so  uses  a 
light,  agreeable,  restful  voice  that  every  word,  sharply  cut, 
can  be  heard  in  a  large  audience  room  by  thousands ;  and 
it  is  just  as  astonishing  and  delightful  to  hear  in  a  class- 
room a  teacher  speak  with  similar  artistry.  Such  speak- 
ers never  get  tired  throats  and  voices ;  something  else  in 
them  gets  tired  first. 

Persons  of  three  types  find  such  speech  exceedingly 
hard  to  acquire.  First,  the  adenoid  type :  —  they  have- 
projecting  front  teeth,  high  palates,  narrow  mouth  arches, 
usually  hypertrophied  tonsils,  and  a  uric  acid  diathesis. 
Generally,  they  have  weak,  shrill,  high-pitched,  almost 
falsetto  voices.  And  it  takes  more  than  mere  self-con- 
trol to  get  their  voices  into  form.  Second,  those  who 
have  wide,  open  throats,  deep-set  tongues,  heavy  muscles, 
who  groan  and  girr  in  their  throats, —  whose  voices  are 
echoes  as  from  caverns.  Third,  the  tone-deaf  type,  who 
may  know  the  sounds  of  words,  but  who  never  learned 
speaking.  Usually,  they  whisper  away  in  monotone. 
Sometimes,  they  roar  in  monotone. 

Persons  of  these  three  types  are  more  numerous  than 
are  persons  who  speak  well, —  far  more  numerous. 

A  clear,  bell-like  voice,  of  moderate  pitch, —  for  women, 
G,  A,  B,  and  C,  not  at  concert  but  at  standard  pitch, 
neither  sharped  nor  flatted, —  is  charming  in  most  young 
women ;  but  it  must  go  up  and  down  in  the  scale  at  least 
a  good  octave  in  ordinary  teaching  in  order  to  be  suffi- 
ciently varied  not  to  tire  either  the  throat  of  the  teacher 
or  the  ears  of  the  pupils.  The  woman  whose  range  is  only 
from  C*  to  Ft  (soprano)  has  too  shrill  a  voice,  too  nar- 
rowly used.     The  man  whose  range  is  only  from  Eb  to  Cb 


234   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

(base)    has  too   dull   a  voice,   also  too  narrowly  used. 

Though  far  more  persons  are  born  with  auditory  than 
with  visual  minds,  such  are  the  standards  for  admission 
into  teaching  that  the  very  great  majority  of  teachers 
are  visualists  rather  than  auditors,  silent  readers  rather 
than  vocalists ;  and  their  teaching  itself  betrays  them. 

But  the  very  truth  that  they  are  visual  and  non-auditory 
explains  why  they  so  misuse  their  voices.  Almost  every 
person  afflicted  with  laryngitis  or  any  other  throat  trouble, 
caused  or  accompanied  by  bad  use  of  the  voice,  is  one  who 
really  never  does  listen  to  the  sound  of  his  own  voice. 
Any  person  who  has  a  natural  or  developed  sense  of 
hearing, —  pitch,  tone,  volume,  resonance, —  makes  his 
own  voice,  however  poor  its  instruments  in  throat,  vocal 
cords  and  mouth,  sound  reasonably  well.  The  ear,  not 
the  throat,  makes  the  agreeable  voice.  And  in  the  long 
run  of  the  decades  of  living  by  a  person  who  is  moder- 
ately self-conscious, —  that  is,  has  self-understanding  but 
neither  pride  nor  false  humility, —  it  is  the  mind  that 
makes  the  ear  that  hears  as  it  is  the  mind  that  makes  the 
eye  that  sees. 

A  person  who  has  a  rasping  voice  is  trebly  unfortunate. 
i.  He  makes  unnecessary  and  yet  inevitable  enemies,  be- 
cause his  voice  wears  upon  and  irritates  them.  2.  He 
wears  upon  himself,  frets  even  himself  by  his  own  voice. 
3.  He  victimizes  his  own  throat,  and  thereby,  to  his  own 
bodily  instrument  for  working  and  living,  he  does  heavy 
damage. 

The  tired  throat  is  somewhat  relieved  by  various  drinks 
according  to  its  troubles  respectively.  Cool,  fresh,  pure 
water  serves  for  most  purposes,  say  55 °  ;  never  ice  water 
for  a  tired  throat.  Hot  water  often  helps.  Milk,  warm 
or  cool, —  980  or  6o°, —  is  often  excellent.  Lemonade, 
orangeade,  even  grape  juice  and  mild  tea  (green  only) 
and  coffee  have  some  therapeutic  values  for  some  definite 


CARE  OF  THE  VOICE  AND  THROAT      235 

purposes.  A  throat,  fatigued  to  the  point  of  evasive  re- 
laxation, is  helped  by  the  astringent  qualities  of  hot  tea ; 
but  it  is  only  a  temporary  help  and  for  it  only  a  small  tea- 
cupful  is  permissible.  Some  of  the  patent  cough  drops 
do  some  good  in  some  cases ;  but  most  of  them  make  most 
of  the  cases  worse. 

Gruels  of  oatmeal  or  barley,  made  with  a  little  milk 
added,  are  good  to  take  mornings  or  afternoons  when  the 
voice  is  giving  way.  But  the  stomach  must  not  be  com- 
pletely filled  with  such  diet  lest  there  be  no  hunger  and 
no  room  for  really  substantial  foods  such  as  meats,  eggs, 
bread  and  pure  ice  cream  at  the  meal  hour. 

Of  the  criteria  for  health  as  apart  from  strength,  the 
voice  is  only  one  of  the  minor  helps ;  but  of  all  the  criteria 
as  to  the  general  strength,  the  vital  reserve,  the  attack 
and  resistance  in  the  battles  of  life,  none  is  more  valuable 
than  the  voice. 

When  a  woman  comes  downstairs  of  a  morning  sing- 
ing away  upon  some  familiar  song,  whatever  its  nature, 
altogether  unlikely  that  she  will  be  unequal  to  the 
lay  and  its  duties.  The  surplus  nervous  energy  reports 
itself  to  the  world  in  the  voice.  A  weak,  plaintive  voice 
is  the  apology  of  the  entire  body  for  the  generally  unfit 
condition  to  live,  playing  one's  part  well.  When  one's 
voice  betrays  an  undesirable  physical  or  mental  state,  the 
sooner  one  sets  about  changing  such  a  state,  the  wiser  one 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
CARE  OF  THE  SKIN 

IN  their  proportions  to  the  whole  body  in  respect  to  their 
relative  weights,  the  bones  come  first,  next  the  muscles, 
third  the  skin,  which  should  weigh  more  than  the  flesh 
or  the  internal  viscera  and  far  more  than  the  veins  and 
arteries  or  the  nerves.  An  exceedingly  thin  and  delicate 
skin,  such  as  characterizes  some  women  and  a  few  men 
and  in  women  is  supposed  by  some  to  be  a  mark  of  beauty, 
is  truly,  when  properly  considered,  a  mark  of  deteriora- 
tion and  of  future  danger.  The  "  thin-skinned  "  are  pe- 
culiarly liable  to  troubles  from  drafts,  from  strong  winds, 
from  local  abrasions,  from  chills.  Almost  all  such  per- 
sons are  muscularly  weak  and  have  frail  digestions,  frail 
breathing  apparatus,  and  frail  nerves.  Psychically,  they 
are  alert  but  over-sensitive.  Their  bleached,  bloodless 
integuments  have  been  caused  by  such  conditions  as  these, 
viz. — 

1.  Indoor  living. 

2.  Non-protein  diet. 

3.  Either  too  much  or  too  little  bathing. 

4.  Too  much  clothing,  day  or  night,  or  both. 

5.  Insufficient  exercise. 

6.  Too  much  brain  work,  or 

7.  Poor  heredity. 

Fortunately,  for  the  "  thin-skinned,"  their  condition 
may  be  remedied  without  much  trouble  and  in  compara- 
tively brief  time  because  good  Mother  Nature  intends  us 
all  to  have  skin  enough  for  health  and  comfort. 

236 


CARE  OF  THE  SKIN  237 

There  was  a  case  of  a  young  woman  teacher,  half 
Wurttemberger  (German)  and  half  Highland  Scotch,  who 
had  a  tissue  paper  skin  and  a  steady  bronchitis,  not  an 
unusual  combination.  She  was  very  intelligent,  very  in- 
dustrious, very  amiable,  very  pale,  very  thin,  and  very 
tall.  (Body  coefficient  at  23  years  of  age  only  170.) 
She  fairly  shivered  even  in  a  summer  breeze  and  wore 
very  heavy  outer  garments  in  winter.  She  had  an 
abominable  stove  in  her  rural  classroom  as  the  source  of 
heat ;  and  she  stayed  too  near  it.  She  lived  in  a  farm- 
house with  no  bathroom. 

Tuberculosis  was  distinctly  threatened. 

A  single  summer  at  the  seashore  set  her  in  the  right 
direction.  She  went  home  weighing  twenty  pounds  more, 
and  half  of  it  was  in  a  rebuilt  skin,  due  more  to  staying 
outdoors  than  to  her  twenty  minute  salt  water  bath  every 
other  day.  The  resort  had  still  water  as  well  as  surf ; 
and  she  went  rowing  for  several  hours  every  day. 

Farm  girls  have  good  skins  from  living  outdoors?  — 
No,  indeed.  They  and  their  mothers  often  have  poorer 
skins  and  live  indoors  more  and  in  hotter  rooms  than  do 
modern  city  women.     We  should  be  changing  all  that. 

The  regimen  for  building  a  good,  clear,  beautiful  and 
useful  skin  includes  these  methods,  viz. — 

1.  Plenty  of  skin  building  foods.  (Vegetables  and 
fruits  do  not  help  much  in  this  direction.) 

2.  Skin  aeration  and  lavation  and  towel-rubbing  every 
day, —  top  to  toe. 

3.  Several  hours  daily  outdoors.  When  the  tender 
skin  roughens,  use  cold  cream  ;  glycerin  and  denatured  al- 
cohol ;  vaseline ;  or  any  other  aseptic  emollient. 

4.  Light  underwear. 

5.  Enough  non-  fatiguing  exercise  to  stretch  the  skin 
upon  all  parts  of  the  body. 

The  thin-skinned  often  have  pale,  drawn  faces.     Al- 


238   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

most  as  often,  they  resort  to  massage,  which  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  does  no  good  whatsoever  to  them.  As  for  rub- 
bing cold  cream,  mutton  tallow  or  anything  else  into  the 
skin  to  make  it  more  plump,  the  physiologist  can  only 
laugh.  The  human  leather  was  built  to  keep  everything 
off  from  the  skin  and  out  from  the  tissues.  The  popular 
legend  to  the  effect  that  bathing  in  milk  makes  one  fatter 
is  simply  funny.  The  skin  does  not  absorb  water  in  a 
bath;  on  the  contrary,  bathing  always  makes  one  still 
thinner  for  the  time  being  because  it  sets  the  blood  to 
burning  yet  brighter.  Whether  milk  makes  the  skin  soft 
and  white  is  a  different  question. 

The  thick-skinned  who  have  no  herpes  or  pimples  or 
blackheads  or  acne  or  other  skin  disease  have  nothing  in 
this  line  to  complain  of ;  they  are  well-born  and  fortunate. 

The  serious  and  baffling  skin  troubles  are  too  varied  in 
kind  and  the  kinds  are  too  numerous  even  to  mention 
many  in  a  book  on  general  hygiene;  but  whatever  the 
kind,  it  seems  especially  to  afflict  those  whose  skins  are 
not  good  leather.  Therefore,  a  generalized  skin  regimen, 
such  as  by  experience  seems  to  develop  and  maintain  a 
good  skin,  is  desirable.  It  is  offered  with  this  definite 
limitation ;  a  differential  diagnosis  of  the  characteristics 
and  peculiarities  of  every  skin  that  is  not  well  is  required. 
The  system  here  proposed  is  not  of  universal  applicability. 
For  example,  some  skins  suffer  from  bathing  even  with 
pure  soap  and  water.  Some  skins  will  not  endure  even 
the  finest  of  soaps,  used  moderately.  Some  skins  are 
roughened  by  fresh  sea  air.  And  some  skins  cannot  em 
dure  tanning  by  sunlight  and  wind.  But  for  most  skins 
this  system  works  well. 

i.  Daily  bathing  all  over,  tub,  shower,  or  wet  towel,  in 
ventilated  room  at  70  degrees.  Rubbing  by  a  rough  but 
not  harsh  towel,  except  face,  fingers  and  toes,  which  re- 
quire soft,  thin,  old  toweling. 


CARE  OF  THE  SKIN  239 

2.  Brief  aeration  for  all  parts  of  the  body,  twice  daily. 
Some  women  dress  and  undress  inside  of  their  kimonos 
or  bathrobes;  but  most  skins  benefit  by  an  open-to-the- 
room-air  treatment.  A  dressing-room  should  not  be  too 
cold, —  70  degrees  is  reasonable. 

3.  Exercising  every  muscle  of  the  body  every  day. 

4.  Wearing  light,  open  mesh  underwear. 

5.  After  using  soap  to  clean  hands  or  any  other  part 
of  the  body,  rinse  well  in  clear  water.  Never  leave  any 
soap  upon  the  skin. 

6.  Avoid  heavy  clothing  even  in  winter  unless  driving 
outdoors  seated  in  a  conveyance.  The  skin  is  meant  to 
keep  the  body  warm. 

7.  Carefully  avoid  all  known  sources  of  infection  or 
of  abrasion.  Wear  rubber  gloves  when  washing  dishes. 
Wear  cotton  gloves  when  sweeping  or  dusting.  Keep 
out  of  all  dust  from  whatever  source,  including  furnace 
ashes. 

8.  To  soften  the  skin,  rub  with  oatmeal  or  bran ;  or  use 
aseptic  cold  cream  or  the  equivalent. 

The  questions  of  veils,  of  hats  with  wide  brims  and  of 
talcum  powder  are  to  be  answered  in  the  terms  of  personal 
traits  and  needs, —  but  there  is  no  skin  that  prospers 
from  the  use  of  cosmetics  that  seal  the  pores  and  check 
radiation.  Skins  are  meant  to  perspire  water  and 
to  exude  oil ;  and  these  functions  are  necessary  both  to 
tfa  and  to  beauty.  A  painted  face  is  not  so  beautiful 
as  a  pale  one;  and  a  pale  one  is  not  so  beautiful  as  one 
rosy  with  good  heredity,  from  good  blood  and  from  fresh 
air  out  of  doors. 


THE   VARIOUS   SKIN   DISEASES 

All  such  troubles  as  eczema,  pimples,  acne,  blackheads, 
herpes,  ringworm,  moles,  warts,  ingrown  hairs,  scales, 


240   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

white  spots,  scrofula,  itch,  erysipelas,  pediculosis,  dan- 
druff, scratches,  shingles,  birthmarks,  chilblains,  cracks 
and  sores,  felons,  styes,  corns,  bunions,  callosities,  in- 
grown nails,  cuts,  wounds  and  abrasions,  facial  hair  upon 
women,  chancre,  blisters,  boils,  wens,  carbuncles,  tumors 
and  canceps  that  afflict  the  skin  belong  for  discussion  in 
medical  treatises  rather  than  in  hygienic  compendiums. 
But  a  few  suggestions  to  show  the  importance  both  of 
common  sense  and  of  personal  treatment  by  a  doctor  are 
in  place  here. 

i.  No  such  rule  as  "Use  plenty  of  soap,  water  and  clean 
towels  "  covers  all  skin  troubles.  Soap,  water  and  towels 
are  bad  for  eczema.  Of  course,  every  case  of  eczema  is 
different  according  to  the  patient;  but  in  general  the 
treatment  is  a  very  gentle  cleaning  with  soft  water, 
then  covering  away  from  the  air  with  some  antiseptic  oint- 
ment, and  no  more  washing  for  a  week !  In  truth,  water 
is  bad  for  many  of  the  skin  troubles.  There  are  some 
conditions  in  which  even  seabathing  is  forbidden. 

2.  It  is  not  -true  that  "  All  skin  troubles  are  caused  by 
uncleanliness."  On  the  contrary,  excessive  manicuring 
develops  or  at  least  assists  the  development  of  hangnails 
and  even  of  felons.  A  very  clean  skin  seems  to  invite 
infection  by  ringworm.  Close  shaving  leads  to  ingrown 
hairs.  The  management  of  ingrown  nails  does  not  turn 
upon  frequent  bathing  and  cutting  but  upon  packing  under 
the  nail  with  sterilized  cotton  soaked  in  oil  or  wax  and 
letting  the  nail  grow, —  perhaps  after  scraping  it  thin 
with  a  sharp  knife  edge. 

3.  Everyone  of  these  troubles  calls  for  special  therapy. 
Corns  are  caused  by  loose  shoes  that  do  not  fit,  and  bun- 
ions by  tight  shoes  that  do  not  fit.  Chancre  is  due  to  an 
infection  by  a  very  serious  disease ;  but  scrofula  is  prob- 
ably hereditary,  while  no  one  can  yet  prove  what  does 
cause   cancer   wherever   it  occurs.     Shingles   about   the 


CARE  OF  THE  SKIN  241 

waist  are  caused  by  nervous  breakdown.  It  is  well  known 
that  "  when  they  meet  over  the  trunk,  the  patient  invari- 
ably dies  " ;  but  they  never  meet  and  never  can  meet  be- 
cause the  nerves  along  which  the  shingles  spread  do  not 
meet  but  sweep  upward  upon  the  trunk  and  end  before 
meeting. 

Very  hearty  persons  are  peculiarly  liable  to  boils  and 
to  carbuncles,  which,  however,  are  not  self -originated 
but  due  to  infection  from  others.  Many  of  these  trou- 
bles tend  to  reproduce  themselves  and  to  spread;  others 
tend  to  shrivel  and  shrink,  their  first  state  being  the  worst. 
Therefore,  home  treatment  of  skin-diseases  without  medi- 
cal advice  is  a  risky  experiment. 

4.  All  these  troubles  are  cases  where  the  tissues  have 
"  gone  crazy,"  cannot  develop  and  die  normally ;  they 
may  be  fighting  invading  microbes  or  bacteria,  or  poisons 
from  the  blood,  or  they  may  be  worried  over  excess  nutri- 
tion. Cancer  is  a  natural  growth  gone  to  mad  excess. 
A  boil,  however,  is  a  siege  laid  by  the  skin  and  blood 
against  a  filthy  enemy. 

Because  we  can  see  the  results  of  skin  diseases  upon 
the  surface  of  the  body,  we  know  their  names  and  some- 
thing of  their  natures  to  a  degree  beyond  our  observa- 
tion and  knowledge  of  any  other  diseases.  In  conse- 
quence, few  persons  ever  die  of  skin  diseases,  because 
they  are  arrested  in  time  and  cured.  There  is,  also,  a 
very  marked  social  prejudice,  even  a  social  taboo,  against 
persons  who  have  skin  diseases.  This  is  due  to  several 
causes,  viz. — 

1     The  fact  that  many  skin  diseases  are  communicable. 

2.  The  fact  that  many  of  them  proceed  from  uncleanli- 
ness. 

The  fact  that  all  of  them  destroy  the  beauty  of  the 
skin. 

-1  withstanding  these  general  notions  regarding  skin 


242   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

diseases,  two  truths  require  emphasis, —  first,  that  many 
of  them  are  obscure  in  their  origin  and  cause ;  and,  sec- 
ond, that  the  popular  notions  and  procedures  of  treat- 
ment often  make  them  worse.  Of  these  truths,  many 
illustrations  might  be  given.  No  scientist  yet  knows 
the  cause  of  cancer  or  even  of  warts.  The  very  popular 
methods  of  dealing  with  dandruff, —  i.  the  daily  use  of  a 
fine  tooth  comb ;  and  2.  washing  the  head  frequently  with 
soap  and  water,  both  generally  make  the  conditions  worse 
rather  than  better.  Manicuring  the  finger-nails  not  only 
often  ruins  them  but  actually  develops  several  troubles. 
No  doubt  the  hair  and  the  nails  should  be  kept  clean ; 
but  manicuring  the  nails  may  be  the  opposite  of  curing 
them;  and  soaping  the  hair  burns  it. 

The  rule  of  the  old  barber  is  a  good  one;  of  course, 
shampoo  the  hair  every  fortnight  or  so,  but  do  it  as  quickly 
as  possible,  and  be  sure  to  get  every  trace  of  the  sham- 
poo out  of  the  hair.  Soap  is  as  bad  for  skin  and  hair 
as  it  is  for  dirt. 

Some  of  the  troubles  of  the  skin  are  due  to  peculiari- 
ties that  no  physician  has  yet  fathomed.  There  was  a 
case  of  a  man  who  at  eighteen  to  twenty  years  of  age 
was  greatly  troubled  by  swollen  sebaceous  glands  at 
various  points  of  his  body.  This  stage  passed  away  to 
be  followed  by  wens  upon  his  head.  These  were  removed 
by  surgery  and  ceased  to  appear.  Then  came  a  stage  of 
eczema  that  lasted  ten  years.  This  was  cured  but  was 
followed  by  warts,  dozens  of  them.  At  fifty  years  of 
age,  there  was  not  a  mark  upon  his  body;  and  his  skin 
was  as  clear  as  a  baby's.  This  stage  lasted  several  years. 
He  seemed  to  be  under  the  influence  of  successive  heredi- 
tary forces. 

Just  as  there  are  persons  who  never  have  decay  in  any 
tooth  till  death;  and  persons  who  have  abundant  black 
hair  into  old  age ;  so  there  are  some  who  never  have  a 


CARE  OF  THE  SKIN  243 

corn  upon  a  foot  or  a  hangnail  upon  a  finger.  The  first 
may  never  brush  their  teeth ;  the  second  may  never  wash 
their  hair ;  and  the  third  group  may  be  careless  about 
washing.  These  are  the  fortunate  primitives  whose  struc- 
tures and  tissues  are  still  proof  against  outer  nature  and 
civilization.  For  most  of  us,  however,  it  certainly  pays 
to  be  hygienic. 

Should  there  be  an  infected  spot  upon  the  surface  of 
the  body,  great  care  should  be  taken  at  once  and  con- 
stantly thereafter  lest  it  spread  or  be  transferred  else- 
where. Seldom  does  soapy  bathwater  serve  as  a  car- 
rier, but  the  infected  towel  is  a  frequent  cause  of  in- 
creased trouble.  Sores,  ringworms,  boils  may  be  cov- 
ered with  carbolated  vaseline,  zinc  ointment,  iodoform 
dressings  or  otherwise  as  much  to  protect  the  rest  of  the 
body  and  other  persons  as  to  promote  cure. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
CARE  OF  THE  HAIR 

ORDINARILY,  the  hair  of  the  head  goes  through 
four  stages ;  but  their  nature  depends  upon  the  race 
of  the  individual  and  upon  the  particular  diathesis.  The 
first  stage  is  the  woolly  mat  characteristic  of  birth.  It 
seldom  lasts  more  than  a  few  weeks.  In  the  second  stage, 
there  is  a  thick  growth  of  strong  hair  that  becomes  heav- 
iest at  about  sixteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age.  Third, 
is  the  greying  and  thinning  out  stage,  which  is  decidedly 
evident  at  about  forty  or  fifty  years  of  age.  Last  comes 
baldness  of  the  crown  with  thin  white  hair  in  a  fringe 
below  the  crown;  often  the  baldness  starts  also  from  the 
heck  up.     Such  is  the  usual  process. 

Here  and  there  is  the  individual  who  has  dark  hair 
and  fairly  thick  as  late  as  sixty  or  even  seventy  years 
of  age.  He  is  usually  a  brunette.  Not  infrequently,  a 
Welshman  has  such  hair.  A  large  number  of  men  be- 
gin to  be  bald  in  spots  as  early  as  thirty  years  of  age. 
The  man  who  becomes  distinctly  bald  at  thirty  years  of 
age  is  usually  a  blonde.  Not  infrequently,  he  is  a  Saxon, 
either  English  or  German. 

Hair  that  remains  pigmented  through  life  and  baldness 
that  comes  early  in  life  are  not  only  hereditary  but  also 
racial.  Is  it  then  utterly  futile  to  try  to  prevent  grey- 
ness  and  baldness?  Do  brushing,  shampooing,  dressing 
even  by  experts  serve  any  useful  purpose  in  keeping  a 
good  head  of  hair?  Often,  at  various  times,  the  head 
seems  to  have  a  serious  tendency  to  dandruff;  and  with 

244 


CARE  OF  THE  HAIR  245 

the  dandruff,  there  seems  to  be  an  increase  in  the  activity 
with  which  the  hair  falls  out.  Is  there  any  tendency 
to  have  dandruff ;  and  does  the  dandruff  cause  or  follow 
the  increasing  baldness?  Millions  of  persons  including 
teachers  are  worrying  about  these  matters.  They  are 
really  more  sensitive  about  their  hair  than  they  are  about 
even  their  upper  front  teeth.  The  bald  always  look  so 
queer !  And  women  do  not  like  to  wear  false  braids  nor 
men  wigs  or  toupees. 

The  first  thing  to  be  observed  is  that  greyness  and 
baldness  are  part  of  the  human  lot,  and  come  because 
old  age  can  be  escaped  only  by  dying  young. 

The  second  thing  needs  to  be  remembered, —  the  prin- 
ciple of  periodicity  works  as  to  the  hair  also.  Every 
spring,  there  is  a  marked  tendency  of  the  hair  to  get 
stronger.  Often  for  ten  or  even  fifteen  years  of  middle 
life,  the  hair  is  much  better  pigmented  and  thicker  in 
May  than  it  was  in  January.  Cold  winter  weather  has 
stimulated  the  scalp  and  forced  it  to  try  to  improve  its 
covering.  Summer  bleaches  the  hair  and  dries  it  out ; 
and  in  the  autumn  and  early  winter  in  middle  life,  the 
hair  falls  out.  Fortunately  for  a  score  of  years,  there 
is  an  active  replacement  by  new  hair. 

Third,  both  the  common  experience  of  mankind  and  the 
positive  records  of  physicians  show  that  some  proced- 
ures strengthen  the  roots  of  the  hair,  prevent  its  being 
broken  from  dryness,  and  prolong  its  life. 

What  the  hair  needs  most  of  all  is  an  active  circula- 
tion at  its  roots.  This  is  secured  by  massage  with  the 
fingers  morning  and  night  and  by  vigorously  working 
the  scalp.  Men  should  never  wear  hats  with  tight  hat- 
bands. Women  should  never  keep  their  hats  on  for  sev- 
eral hours  at  a  time.  If  possible,  they  should  take  their 
hair  down  every  afternoon  and  exercise  the  scalp  and  air 
the  hair  for  a  few  minutes. 


246   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Next,  the  hair  needs  its  own  natural  oil.  It  should 
be  brushed  and  combed  twice  daily, —  for  how  long  de- 
pends upon  its  length,  fineness  and  quantity.  Dressing 
the  long,  heavy  hair  of  typical  women  of  most  of  the 
stocks  represented  in  America  is  a  serious  matter, —  as 
all  such  women  know.  It  takes  time, —  often  a  full  half 
hour  every  morning.  Despite  its  beauty,  such  a  heavy 
head  of  hair  is  a  heavy  handicap  in  life  as  compared  with 
the  short  hair  of  men.  Brushing  and  combing  bring  the 
oil  up  from  the  scalp  through  all  the  hair. 

Many  things  that  are  done  to  the  hair  were  better  not 
done. 

i.  A  fine  tooth  comb  should  be  used,  if  at  all,  only 
gently  and  sparingly, —  perhaps  twice  a  month  at  most. 
It  rakes  and  irritates  the  scalp  and  starts  troubles  of  the 
skin.  Of  course,  of  itself,  it  never  causes  dandruff. 
Men  generally  are  too  fond  of  the  fine  tooth  comb. 

2.  The  hair  never  should  be  heated  by  curling  irons. 
The  woman  who  desires  her  straight  hair  to  be  wavy  will 
pay  the  price  in  early  loss  of  long  hair;  that  is  all;  it  is 
enough  for  the  intelligent.  Putting  up  the  hair  in  curl- 
ing papers  without  heat  tends  only  to  break  it,  but  other- 
wise does  no  serious  harm. 

3.  There  is  no  harmless  hair  dye  or  stain,  not  even 
sage  tea.  Not  to  raise  the  question  whether  darkening 
the  hair  artificially  ever  deceives  any  one,  the  process  de- 
feats itself,  for  it  attacks  the  hair  and  soon  makes  a  bad 
matter  worse. 

4.  Bleaching  the  hair  dries  it;  and  drying  the  hair 
burns  its  color  and  its  substance.  The  dark  lady  who 
becomes  "  a  bleached  blonde  "  in  a  few  years  proceeds 
into  "  a  woman  with  a  wig."  Bleaching  promotes  bald- 
ness. 

5.  Those  with  the  thin  hair  of  middle  age  should  note 
that  it  does  not  keep  out  dust  and  that  it  dries  out  much 


CARE  OF  THE  HAIR  247 

more  quickly  than  the  thick  hair  of  youth.  The  float  of 
particles  in  the  air  from  woolen  carpets,  rugs  and  blankets 
clings  to  the  hair  when  thin  and,  unless  removed,  mats 
upon  the  scalp.  These  two  troubles  suggest  their  own 
remedies. 

6.  In  the  case  of  women  with  hair  upon  the  face  that 
annoys  them,  depilation  is  a  severe  temptation.  Electro- 
lysis is  the  only  remedy ;  and  the  experienced  physician  is 
the  only  person  to  whom  it  is  safe  to  go  for  advice  and 
treatment.  Many  a  woman  has  made  much  trouble  for 
herself  by  experimenting  in  the  removal  of  hair  otherwise 
than  at  the  hands  of  a  medical  expert. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
CARE  OF  THE  FEET 

THE  normal  American  girl  of  sixteen  years  has  had 
an  outdoor  summer  vacation  every  year  when  she 
has  gone  swimming  and  has  run  about  barefoot  or  with 
shoes  adapted  to  active  sports;  and  the  arch  of  her 
instep  is  high,  considerably  higher  than  that  of  her  own 
brother  of  the  same  stock  and  breed.  In  consequence, 
such  a  girl  needs  a  shoe  with  a  higher  heel  than  does  her 
brother. 

But  the  average  American  woman,  three  times  as  old 
as  the  girl,  has  insteps  badly  broken  down  and  is  flat- 
footed,  which  is  a  calamity.  Flat  feet  are  serious  bur- 
dens to  any  teacher ;  they  cause  pain,  prevent  much  active 
exercise,  and  reduce  efficiency.  In  addition,  a  flatfoot 
with  its  broken  arch  is  ungainly  in  appearance;  and 
causes  personal  mortification,  which  is  prejudicial  to  joy 
in  life  and  therefore  to  health. 

Every  normal  person  has  feet  entirely  free  from  corns, 
bunions,  ingrown-nails,  other  callosities,  and  from  skin 
diseases.  By  this  standard,  few  persons  are  normal. 
The  question  is  what  regimen  will  gradually  restore  feet 
that  are  not  in  good  health  to  such  health.  In  some  in- 
stances, nothing  can  be  done  successfully.  In  other  in- 
stances, chiropody  and  even  positive  surgery  and  medica- 
tion may  be  called  in  successfully. 

Those  who  have  trouble  with  their  feet  should  re- 
member that  there  are  other  persons  who  have  never 
had  trouble  and  still  others  who,  having  had  trouble,  have 

248 


CARE  OF  THE  FEET  249 

been  perfectly  cured  and  should  infer  that  perhaps  they 
themselves  are  responsible  for  their  foot  troubles.  Many 
persons  are  unnecessarily  content  with  their  own  foot- 
management,  assuming  that  corns  and  flat  feet  are  irre- 
mediable dispensations  of  fate, —  to  be  endured,  not  cured. 
There  is  no  universal  rule  as  to  what  comes  first  in  the 
care  of  the  feet ;  but  there  are  some  general  rules,  which 
may  be  stated  as  follows,  viz. — 

1 .  Wear  close-fitting  shoes. 

2.  Never  wear  the  same  pair  of  shoes  over  two  days  in 
succession. 

3.  Bathe  the  feet  at  least  once  a  day  in  warm  water. 

4.  Wear  smooth,  clean  hosiery,  preferably  thin. 

5.  Get  after  any  threatened  trouble  immediately. 

6.  Trim  the  nails  moderately  but  frequently. 

7.  Never  keep  rubbers  on  one  minute  longer  than 
necessary. 

8.  Do  not  wear  patent  leather  or  waterproof  uppers  on 
shoes. 

9.  Wear  light-weight  shoes  indoors. 

Each  one  of  these  rules  is  worth  thorough  considera- 
tion. 

No  one  should  ever  wear  a  shoe  with  a  low  instep ;  a 
moderate  arch  is  needed  by  every  one.  Persons  with  nat- 
urally high  arches  need  shoes  with  strong,  high  insteps 
and  moderately  high  heels.  (One  and  a  half  inches  is 
Ml  too  high  for  many  women  who  are  five  feet,  six  inches 
tall.)  Low  heels  (less  than  one  inch)  will  do  for  some 
short  men. 

The  man  who. finds  to  his  disappointment  that  after 
being  worn  a  few  days,  new  shoes  fail  to  support  the 
feet  should  throw  them  away,  lest  a  worse  evil  befall 
him.  The  woman  with  similar  experience  should  do 
likewise.  Most  shoes  now  on  sale  have  weak,  low,  ana- 
tomically incorrect  shanks  and  tight,  stiff  vamps.     The 


250   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

shank  should  be  well-rounded  and  strong  and  the  vamp 
free  and  easy. 

Every  shoe  should  be  a  snug  fit.  Loose  shoes  cause  a 
hundred  times  as  many  corns  as  do  tight  shoes.  Upon 
getting  new  shoes,  wear  them  only  an  hour  or  so  daily  for 
several  days  to  break  them  in  gradually.  Any  shoe  prop- 
erly managed  is  better  the  second  year  than  the  first.  Do 
not  buy  shoes  to  wear  them  out  but  to  keep  and  use  slowly. 
Many  intelligent  persons  wear  shoes  off  and  on  for  four, 
five,  even  six  years.  A  shoe  grown  stiff  with  age  may 
easily  be  softened  with  vaseline  or  cold  cream  or  olive 
oil. 

A  shoe  that  fits  is  extra  long  to  allow  for  the  forward 
pressure  in  walking  down  grade,  and  to  prevent  the  de- 
velopment of  ingrowing  toe  nails. 

The  foot  sweats  and  should  sweat ;  the  shoe  needs  more 
than  the  night  to  dry  out.  Any  shoe  presses  upon  some 
points  rather  than  upon  others.  Keep  several  different 
pairs  in  use,  preferably  made  upon  slightly  different  lasts 
and  of  different  leather.  It  is  a  mistake  to  buy  at  the 
same  time  shoes  of  the  same  make  and  quality. 

The  feet  can  scarcely  be  bathed  too  often;  in  this  re- 
spect, they  are  like  the  hands.  Only  when  there  is  ec- 
zema, should  the  daily  bathing  be  omitted.  In  many 
cases,  after  bathing  the  feet,  they  should  be  well  dried. 
Dusting  the  feet  well  with  talcum  powder  is  often  a 
help. 

Soaking  the  feet  in  very  hot  water  for  a  quarter  hour 
cures  many  troubles  when  kept  up  daily.  ( Some  patients 
object  to  taking  so  much  time ;  but  it  is  quite  possible  to 
sit  with  one's  feet  in  a  pail  of  water  or  upon  a  chair 
beside  a  tub,  while  reading  a  book  or  magazine  or  even 
while  writing  a  letter.  The  point  is  to  let  the  feet  soak.) 
In  some  cases,  sea  salt,  or  even  ordinary  salt,  in  the  water 
may  help. 


CARE  I  >F  Till-:  FEET  351 

In  many  instances,  corns  are  caused  not  by  the  shoes 
hut  by  the  stockings.  Many  persons  wear  coarse  or 
overlarge  hosiery  that  rubs  or  overlaps  and  so  makes 
trouble.  The  hose  should  fit  exactly,  being  neither  too 
tight  nor  too  loose.  Persons  who  have  any  trouble  with 
their  feet  should,  when  possible,  take  off  both  shoes  and 
stockings  and  rest  and  aerate  their  feet  every  afternoon. 
It  is  not  enough  to  remove  the  shoes  only. 

The  foot  is  the  only  part  of  the  modern  person  to  be 
encased  in  leather.  It  is  true  that  our  barbarian  ances- 
tors wore  skins;  but  even  they  wore  upon  their  feet 
sandals  only,  not  shoes  with  both  soles  and  uppers  of 
leather,  which  is  not  good  for  the  skin  because  it  is  too 
impervious  to  permit  proper  ventilation  of  the  feet.  In 
order  to  protect  our  feet  from  injury,  it  will  be  neces- 
sary even  in  the  coming  airplane  age  to  wear  leather 
shoes;  but  we  can  ameliorate  the  resultant  foot  troubles 
ttention  to  foot  hygiene. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  woman  teacher  who  noticed  a 
slight  difficulty  in  one  toe, —  inflammation  and  pain  and 
stiffness.  She  let  it  go.  A  few  days  later,  the  entire 
foot  was  badly  swollen.  Now  such  symptoms  may  attend 
various  troubles  and  are  difficult  for  even  a  physician 
tu  interpret.  The  history  of  this  case  is  both  medical 
and  surgical;  but  this  difficulty,  which  was  remediable 
\  hen  she  first  noticed  it,  actually  cost  her  lower  limb  to 
the  knee ;  and  she  barely  escaped  with  her  life.  The  orig- 
inal and  moving  cause  was  that  she  stubbed  her  toe  in 
the  dark  against  a  chair;  broke  a  joint,  and  set  up  an  in- 
flammation, which  getting  an  infection  from  some  un- 
able source,  developed  into  blood-poisoning.  This, 
of  course,  was  a  very  unusual  case;  but  this  fact  did  not 
prevent  its  being  nearly  fatal 

There  was  another  case  of  a  young  woman  who  devel- 
oped a  running  sore  upon  the  ball  of  her  foot  and  bravely 


252   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

and  silently  set  out  not  to  complain  but  to  endure  it.  Of 
course,  she  gave  up  walking  to  and  from  school,  but 
rode  both  ways  in  a  street  car.  She  was  intelligent 
enough  to  take  thorough  antiseptic  care  of  it  twice  daily, 
but  she  did  not  cure  it.  For  want  of  sufficient  outdoor 
exercise,  she  developed  severe  kidney  trouble  that  finally 
made  calling  in  a  physician  necessary.  Under  his  treat- 
ment, the  foot  was  soon  cured ;  but  the  impairment  of  the 
kidneys,  though  checked  in  its  development,  was  not  cur- 
able.    It  is  very  shortsighted  to  neglect  foot  troubles. 

As  soon  as  one  discovers  a  nail  in  a  shoe  making  trouble 
for  the  foot,  immediately  get  the  shoe  off.  When  this 
occurs  upon  the  highway,  get  the  shoe  off,  pack  in  a  hand- 
kerchief or  a  card,  and  replace  the  shoe ;  but  by  all  means 
stop  the  nail  from  making  any  more  trouble.  Many  a 
case  of  blood-poisoning  has  started  from  a  nail  in  the 
shoe  or  from  a  carpet  tack  upon  the  floor. 

As  one  grows  older,  there  is  a  marked  tendency  on  the 
part  of  nails  to  curve  inward  and  thereby  to  cut  into  the 
skin  at  the  ends  of  the  toes.  Trimming  the  nails  faith- 
fully at  least  once  a  week  after  a  bath  helps.  The  way 
to  deal  with  a  nail  that  has  grown  in  is  to  trim  it  and  then 
to  pack  sterilized  absorbent  cotton  under  it,  which  should 
be  removed  daily.  A  bad  case  belongs  to  the  family  phy- 
sician or  to  an  expert  chiropodist  for  relief. 

THE   CURE   OF   CORNS 

Almost  every  corn  is  curable;  and  any  toe  once  cured 
prefers  to  stay  normal.  Corns  are  produced  by  the  per- 
sons to  whose  feet  they  are  fastened.  It  is  entirely  un- 
necessary to  have  corns ;  but  it  is  not  always  easy  to  get 
rid  of  them.  Nor  is  it  worth  while  to  do  so  unless  one 
intends  to  abate  their  cause,  which  is  never  anything  else 
than  shoes  and  hosiery  that  do  not  fit.  Corns  are  un- 
natural. 


CARE  OF  THE  FEET  253 

But  the  patent  corn  relief  plasters  may  produce  serious 
trouble. 

The  procedure  for  the  cure  of  corns  that  works  in 
most  cases  is  as  follows,  viz. — 

First,  get  two  pairs  of  shoes,  not  just  alike,  but  each 
pair  a  perfect  fit,  as  indicated  above. 

Second,  trim  the  corns  with  sharp,  curved,  small  scis- 
•ut  do  not  trim  to  the  point  of  bleeding. 

Third,  coat  the  pared  corns  over  with  liquid  court  plas- 
ter or  some  similar  preparation  thoroughly  sterilized. 

Fourth,  wrap  the  offending  toes  in  two  thicknesses  of 
soft,  old,  clean  strips  from  handkerchiefs  or  other  thin 
linen. 

Fifth,  wear  soft  slippers  evenings. 

Nine  corns  in  ten  will  yield  to  such  treatment  within  a 
fortnight ;  cease  to  grow ;  and  never  return.  The  tenth 
corn  needs  medical  attention. 


GOOD  SHOES 

Rubbers  are  very  bad  for  the  feet.  Waterproof  shoes 
are  also  bad.  Patent  leather,  likewise.  Really,  it  does 
no  harm  to  have  wet  feet  while  walking;  all  the  harm  is 
from  sitting  around  in  wet  shoes  and  hosiery.  Of  course, 
wetting  the  shoes  is  bad  for  the  leather;  and  drying  them 
off  the  feet  is  worse.  Frankly,  we  wear  rubbers,  first,  to 
save  our  shoes;  and,  second,  to  save  time  in  changing 
into  dry  shoes  and  hosiery.  Getting  the  feet  wet  and 
even  cold  does  not  harm  one  person  in  a  thousand.  Prim- 
it  ivc  man  was  born  and  bred  to  being  wet  from  head  to 
foot. 

When  rubbers  are  kept  on  the  feet  indoors,  the  shoes 
get  wet  from  inside  perspiration ;  and  absolutely  nothing 
is  gained  by  wearing  the  rubbers  at  all.  Both  the  leather 
of  the  shoes  and  the  leather  of  the  skin  are  damaged, 


254   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

V 
for  the  hot  leather  of  the  shoe  blocks  the  free  perspira- 
tion of  the  skin  of  the  foot. 

One  great  cause  of  foot  troubles  is  wearing  very  heavy 
shoes  indoors,  where  the  thinnest  of  shoes  are  warm 
enough.  Teachers  should  wear  light  shoes  in  their 
schoolrooms.  The  best  purchase  of  shoes  is  always  a 
thin  or  at  least  medium  upper  of  sound  leather  with  a 
medium  sole.  Many  women  make  the  mistake  of  getting 
shoes  with  medium  uppers  and  thin  soles.  Experienced 
buyers, —  that  is,  persons  who  know  how  to  select  good 
shoes, —  understand  how  to  estimate  accurately  the  thick- 
ness and  the  quality  of  the  sole  of  a  shoe.  There  are 
very  great  differences  in  the  qualities  of  the  soles  of 
shoes.  Hygienically  considered,  leather  makes  the  best 
sole.     Even  the  sole  of  the  foot  has  perspiratory  glands. 

The  two  serious  objections  to  thin  soles  for  outdoor 
wear  are  that  they  can  be  punctured  too  easily  by  tacks 
or  by  glass,  which  may  severely  cut  the  feet  and  that 
they  are  insufficient  protection  against  roughness  upon 
city  sidewalks  and  pavements,  freely  permitting  stone- 
bruises.  That  they  let  in  the  cold  and  the  wet  is  a  mat- 
ter of  no  direct  hygienic  importance  in  itself ;  the  human 
feet  should  be  veritable  stoves  for  heat.  Unfortunately, 
most  persons  take  walks  and  then  sit  around  for  hours 
and  hours,  though  their  feet  may  be  both  cold  and  wet, 
a  condition  that  tends  distinctly  to  body  chills  and  to 
throat  fevers. 

The  notion  that  exercising  the  feet  and  bathing  them 
frequently  makes  them  larger  is  physiologically  absurd. 
Exercise  and  bathing  tend  directly  to  maintain  the  norm 
between  feeble  thinness  and  feeble  fatness. 

A  strong,  supple,  muscular  foot  that  has  toes  straight 
forward  in  walking  is  a  mark  of  energy  and  character. 

Some  women,  especially  middle-aged  women  who  de- 
sire to  appear  young,  wear  shoes  with  too  high  heels, 


i  ARE  OF  THE  FEET  255 

even  two  and  a  half  inches  high,  which  is  beyond  reason 
for  any  one.  Not  only  so,  but  their  high  heels  are  made 
of  solid  steel,  upon  which  the  weight  of  the  whole  body 
pounds  terrifically  with  every  step.  Nine  persons  in 
every  ten  should  wear  shoes  with  heels  of  live,  new  rub- 
ber not  less  than  one-half  and  preferably  a  full  inch 
thick.  Such  heels  save  many  a  jar  to  the  spinal  cord 
and  brain ;  but  it  does  require  a  modicum  of  intelligence 
to  appreciate  a  proper  heel  of  thick,  good  rubber.  The 
one-eighth  inch  of  rubber  upon  these  faddish  steel  heels 
is  an  offence  to  common  sense  like  some  of  the  alleged 
4*  biscuit  "  crackers. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
RELAXATION  AND  AMUSEMENT 

IN  a  general  and  arbitrary  manner,  in  respect  to  their 
relaxation  and  amusement,  when  distinct  from  play 
and  exercise,  we  may  divide  teachers  first  into  two  classes 
and  next  into  three  subclasses  of  the  second  class.  The 
first  class  consists  of  those  who  from  intrinsic  personal 
causes  or  from  extrinsic  environmental  causes  have  and 
can  have  no  amusements  in  the  proper  sense.  When  also 
they  have  no  relaxation  from  endeavor  and  anxiety,  they 
sicken  and  after  a  time,  be  it  long  or  short, —  it  is  always 
a  time  less  than  man's  normal  three  score  years  and 
ten, —  they  die  from  want  of  amusement.  When  also 
they  want  relaxation,  they  sicken  and  die  quickly.  "  All 
work  and  no  play  "  does  not  "  make  Jack  a  dull  boy  " ; 
rather  it  makes  him  an  invalid  and  soon  ends  him.  But 
with  relaxation,  even  though  it  be  not  amusement,  one 
may  drag  along  perhaps  for  many  years.  By  relaxation 
is  meant  rest,  relief,  release  from  positive  pressure. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  woman  teacher,  who  for  twenty 
years  took  personal  care  of  an  invalid  mother  who  was 
so  badly  wrecked  that  the  presence  of  the  daughter  for 
as  many  hours  a  day  as  possible  was  highly  important ; 
indeed,  it  was  essential  to  the  life  of  the  old  lady  with 
whom  no  one  else  could  get  along.  The  result  was  that 
every  holiday,  summer  and  winter,  and  almost  every 
evening  was  spent  by  the  teacher  with  the  mother.  Per- 
haps, this  was  a  case  of  excess  in  filial  affection  and 
piety ;  be  this  as  it  may,  the  problem  of  the  physicians 

256 


RELAXATION  AND  AMUSEMENT        257 

who  took  care  of  both  persons  was  how  to  keep  the  wage- 
carner  well  enough  to  do  her  work  by  which  both  were 
supported. 

;  vuus  relaxation  must  be  secured;  and  in  this  case 
it  was  secured  to  a  considerable  extent  by  some  hours 
daily  spent  by  the  two  in  reading  aloud  and  listening 
to  light  but  fascinating  novels,  by  housework,  by  short 
walks  and  trolley  rides,  by  music  from  piano  and  phono- 
graph and  by  infrequent  visits  to  the  motion  picture 
shows,  for  though  the  mother  was  too  blind  to  see  the 
pictures,  she  did  enjoy  for  a  half  hour  or  so  the  music 
when  it  happened  to  be  good. 

All  that  the  case  illustrates  is  that  definite  relaxation 
with  as  thorough  forgetfulness  of  the  environing  world 
does  help,  for  the  whole  record  shows  occasional,  though 
but  slight,  breakdowns  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  until 
there  came  a  complete  breakdown  followed  by  change  of 
occupation.  The  really  astonishing  thing  about  this  case 
was  the  survival  of  the  invalid  mother  into  great  old  age, 
—  a  condition  in  kself  that  continually  encouraged  the 
daughter  to  longer  endurance. 

Mere  relaxation  includes  such  things  as  this,  viz. — 

1.  Sitting  in  the  teachers'  rest  room  for  a  few  minutes 
at  recess  or  after  school.  (It  is  not,  however,  in  any 
true  sense,  relaxation  to  engage  in  an  animated  conversa- 
tion with  other  teachers  or  with  pupils  or  with  visitors 
when  nominally  trying  to  rest.) 

2.  Lying  down  there  upon  a  couch,  such  as  every 
schoolhouse  should  have, —  even  a  one-room  rural  school- 
house. 

3.  Reading  at  home  books  not  upon  themes  connected 
with  school  work  or  with  school  life.  Reading  aloud  to 
others  is  not  relaxation  for  the  reader. 

4.  Sitting  in  one's  own  room  at  home,  reading  material 
of  no  definite  importance,  such  as  most  short  stories. 


258   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

5.  Visiting  most  movies ;  some,  however,  are  very  ex- 
citing; and  some  are  really  informative  and  demand  at- 
tention and  consideration. 

6.  Knitting  and  mending.  Dressmaking,  however,  is 
not  relaxation,  because  it  requires  both  thought  and  con- 
stant attention  in  all  the  processes.  \ 

7.  Routine  home  cooking.  But  getting  up  dinners  for 
friends  is  work  or  play,  according  to  the  manner  in  which 
one  takes  it.  Neither  work  nor  play  is  restful  to  the 
nervous  system. 

8.  Taking  a  nap. 

9.  Going  for  a  stroll  at  the  rate  of  not  over  a  mile  in 
twenty  minutes;  nor  walking  up  hills;  nor  going  over 
half  a  mile  then.  Good  walking  is  invigorating,  not 
relaxing. 

10.  Taking  a  warm  or  neutral  tub  bath  is  distinctly 
restful  to  the  weary.  In  some  instances,  however,  even 
the  weary  do  better  to  take  either  a  shower  bath  or  a 
slightly  cool  tub  bath  (900).  These  instances  usually 
concern  the  temporary  weariness  of  persons  with  good 
heart  action  and  with  body  coefficients  exceeding  2.20. 

11.  Companionship  of  some  kinds  under  some  circum- 
stances is  relaxing.  When  persons  sit  in  silence  with  but 
few  remarks  passing  from  one  to  another  and  are  happy 
together  but  passive  and  quiescent,  the  right  conditions 
exist  for  the  relaxation  of  the  weary  ones  among  them ; 
but  in  America  such  a  group  is  unusual. 

12.  Solitude  in  the  woods  or  in  an  attic  or  in  a  "  den  " 
may  or  may  not  be  relaxing.  When  the  solitude  is  quiet 
and  silent,  often  it  is  restful. 

AMUSEMENTS 

Far  greater  is  the  variety  of  amusements  than  the 
variety  of  the  modes  of  relaxation. 

For  convenience,  the  amusements  open  to  the  teacher 


RELAXATION  AND  AMUSEMENT        259 

may  be  classified  as  primarily  physical,  primarily  psychi- 
cal, primarily  social,  and  as  mixed.  The  first  group  be- 
long under  exercise,  where  they  have  been  previously 
considered.  The  secret  of  amusement  is  that  it  makes 
one  forget  the  past  and  the  surroundings  and  live  in  the 
present  emotions. 

It  is  a  psychical  amusement,  not  without  physical  bene- 
fits, however,  to  go  to  a  good  ball  game  ( football,  baseball, 
polo,  hockey)  and  watch  the  contestants  and  perhaps  join 
in  cheering  good  plays  and  the  winners ;  and  the  reason  is 
because  in  the  absorption  and  delight  of  the  contest,  one 
forgets  his  ordinary  affairs  and  even  oneself.  When  any 
man  or  woman  reaches  the  point  that  he  (or  she)  does  not 
enjoy  a  horse  race,  there  is  something  seriously  the  matter 
with  both  mind  and  health.  Any  sport  becomes  to  the 
intelligent  and  healthy  a  spectacle  or  an  amusement. 
When  one  reaches  the  point  where  one  regards  it  so 
wicked  to  watch  a  horse  race  because  perhaps  some  per- 
sons bet  on  the  horses  that  mere  delight  in  the  animals 
themselves  and  in  their  drivers  for  their  love  of  horses 
and  skill  in  managing  them  is  impossible,  one  has  ceased 
to  be  normally  human.  On  the  same  principle,  however, 
one  should  stop  eating  bread  because  men  gamble  on  the 
price  of  wheat  and  one  should  not  buy  books  because 
both  the  writing  and  the  printing  of  books  are  straight 
gambles, —  nothing  else  more  so.  More  horse  races  are 
won  on  the  joint  merits  of  horse  and  man  than  fames  or 
properties  are  gathered  in  the  business  of  life  on  the 
merits  of  the  fame-strugglers  and  wealth-seekers. 

Sometimes,  a  teacher  denies  himself  an  innocent  pleas- 
ure because  he  imagines  that  the  general  public  views  his 
presence  at  a  boxing  match  or  at  a  boatrace  as  in  some 
way  improper;  this  is  pure  imagination.  There  is  no 
sikh  world  here  in  America  as  that  person  pictures  to 
himself  who  imagines  general  disapproval  of  a  disposition 


2<5o        THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

to  enjoy  being  alive  and  seeing  all  normal  life  as  it  is. 
We  are  a  happy  people,  and  we  delight  in  happy  persons. 
The  range  of  amusements  and  of  pleasures  open  to  the 
teacher  who  is  himself  decent  is  very  wide  and  should  be 
kept  so. 

Another  psychical  amusement  is  music  itself, —  piano 
playing,  banjo  playing,  vocal  singing,  perhaps  choral 
work,  which,  however,  has  also  a  social  element.  It  is 
true  that  most  teachers  (unlike  the  generality  of  people) 
are  visile  rather  tha:»:  audile  and  live  in  sights,  not  sounds ; 
still  some  teachers  are  both  audiles  and  esthetes,  and 
delight  in  music.  That  music  tends  both  to  quicken  and 
to  harmonize  the  soul  every  one  knows  from  common 
observation.  Teachers  who  play  good  music  and  who 
sing  good  songs  are  morally  and  physically  the  better  for 
so  doing;  with  the  provisos  that  they  have  the  surplus 
nervous  energy  for  such  effort,  that  they  do  not  need 
sleep  still  more  than  amusement,  and  that  they  do  not 
either  fatigue  their  spinal  systems  or  strain  their  voices. 


HOME   OCCUPATIONS 

Still  other  amusements  are  carpentry  and  various  tech- 
nical sidelines  for  men  and  some  few  similar  interests  for 
women,  such  as  bookbinding  and  handpainting, —  china, 
water  colors,  etc. 

It  is  by  no  means  unwise  for  a  teacher  to  have  a  work- 
room and  a  carpenter's  bench;  but  it  is  unwise  for  him 
to  work  for  others  out  of  school  hours  on  contract  for 
pay.  An  interest  of  this  kind  should  be  kept  uneconomic, 
non-financial,  perfectly  free  from  all  social  obligation. 

Here  are  some  cases. 

A  college  professor  cobbles  all  the  family  shoes ;  he  has 
become  an  expert  in  driving  pegs  and  in  sewing  on  soles. 


RELAXATION  AND  AMUSEMENT        261 

A  school  principal  has  built  half  the  furniture  in  his 
own  home ;  and  very  good  furniture  at  that. 

A  school  superintendent  in  a  small  city  personally  did 
more  than  half  of  all  the  work  of  building  his  own  home ; 
but  the  work  was  spread  out  over  two  full  years.  The 
house  was  not,  however,  assembled  from  ready  cut 
materials.  Instead  of  weakening  him  politically,  his  in- 
dustry of  early  mornings  and  on  holidays  and  in  vacation 
times  and  his  association  with  those  who  sold  him  mate- 
rials and  with  the  expert  workmen  whom  he  had  to  em- 
ploy in  some  lines  made  him  many  friends.  The  outdoor 
work  also  improved  his  health. 

A  high  school  teacher  took  over  a  vacant  plot  120'x  180' 
and  raised  more  than  enough  vegetables  and  small  fruits 
to  feed  his  own  family  of  five  persons.  He  did  it  pri- 
marily for  fun  and  health,  not  to  save  money. 

A  grammar  grade  man  teacher  raised  fine  dogs  and 
trained  them. 

Another  man  kept  in  a  small  town  a  metal  workshop 
in  which  for  an  hour  or  two  every  day  he  mended  bicy- 
cles, sharpened  skates,  and  in  a  small  way  dealt  in  second- 
hand tools  and  garden  implements.  He  trained  his  boys 
incidentally  and  carefully  avoided  making  any  profit. 

Provided  that  such  outside  interests  are  kept  distinctly 
subordinate  and  are  followed  primarily  for  recreation, 
they  are  desirable  and  commendable. 

But  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  when  a  teacher 
really  tries  large  farming,  it  will  soon  be  a  case  of  a  poor 
school  or  a  poor  farm. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

WHEN  TO  RESORT  TO  MEDICINE  AND 
SURGERY 

THERE  are  some  rather  familiar  opinions  among 
laymen  and  some  standard  sayings  among  medical 
men  that  turn  upon  the  question  whether  in  a  particular 
physical  trouble  to  use  drugs  or  the  knife ;  that  is,  whether 
to  medicate  or  to  operate.  The  extent  of  the  field  in 
which  either  method  is  at  least  occasionally  applicable  is 
very  large. 

There  are  diseases  in  which  nursing,  regimen  and 
medicine  do  all  that  possibly  can  be  done  to  correct  or 
ameliorate  or  at  least  alleviate  the  trouble.  Typhoid  fever 
is  an  instance. 

Again  there  are  diseases  in  which  only  surgical  opera- 
tions are  of  any  real  service.     Cancer  is  an  instance. 

But  there  are  many  diseases  in  which  both  medicine  and 
surgery  are  indicated.     Pyorrhea  is  an  instance. 

And  there  are  some  diseases  in  which  in  seeking  help 
one  may  choose  between  medication  and  operation.  Ton- 
silitis  is  such  a  disease,  though,  of  course,  no  one  should 
operate  upon  the  tonsil,  while  inflamed,  beyond  perhaps 
lancing  or  cauterizing  it. 

This  last  is  the  tfield  where  the  discussion  occurs 
whether  to  operate  or  to  medicate.  In  many  localities, 
there  is  a  tradition  as  old  as  folklore  to  the  effect  that  a 
surgical  operation  is  sure  death.  This  is  sometimes  modi- 
fied into  the  proposition  that  a  surgical  operation  is  a  last 
resort  —  the  bare  chance  to  save  an  otherwise  doomed 

262 


MEDICINE  AND  SURGERY  263 

life.  Such  sayings  as  these  are  common  in  some  neigh- 
borhoods,— "  The  hospitals  are  on  the  road  to  the  ceme- 
tery." u  When  doctors  don't  know  how  to  cure,  they 
cut."  "  No  one  ever  lives  long  after  an  operation ;  a  year 
or  two  perhaps."  M  It  was  a  successful  operation,  but  as 
usual  the  patient  died."  When  a  physician  advises  even 
a  strong  man  who  has  been  reared  in  such  ancient  lore, 
the  face  of  the  patient  blanches  and  his  knees  shake  under 
him. 

But  among  the  younger  men  of  the  medical  profession, 
and  also  among  the  abler,  the  situation  is  stated  otherwise. 
"  Better  a  quick  cure  with  the  knife  than  a  slow  cure  with 
drugs."  M  With  medicine  only,  the  patient  might  live  a 
few  months;  by  an  operation,  he  will  get  several  years 
more  of  life."     "  Drugs  kill  more  than  scalpels  kill." 

And  the  young  man  of  the  modern  medical  school  and 
hospital,  taught  as  he  has  been  by  the  veterans  of  great 
ability,  has  all  the  facts  with  him.  In  the  past  one  hun- 
dred years  the  average  length  of  life  in  America  has  in- 
creased by  a  dozen  years ;  in  this  increase,  surgery  has 
played  an  important  part.  There  are  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  men  alive  and  at  work  now  whom  surgery  saved 
promptly  from  near  and  certain  death. 

Another  line  of  remarks  includes  such  statements  as 
these :  — "  Give  medicine  to  old  men  and  to  all  women 
but  operate  upon  young  men  and  all  children."  "  Sur- 
gery for  the  rich ;  medicine  for  the  poor."  "  After  an 
operation,  one's  never  the  same ;  Nature  never  meant  men 
to  be  cut  up;  if  possible,  cure  with  medicine." 

Urban  and  rural  teachers  are  quick  to  say  such  things 
as  have  been  quoted  when  in  their  own  cases  surgery  is 
advised  rather  than  medicine  and  regimen.  But  the  truth 
is  that  to  say  that  any  particular  trouble  is  irremediable 
by  the  knife  may  be  to  say  that  no  real  cure  is  possible. 

Tens  of  thousands  of  teachers  are  dragging  along  today 


264   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

under  handicaps  that  could  be  lifted  immediately  by  sur- 
gery. In  some  instances,  they  do  not  know  that  their 
troubles  can  be  promptly  cured;  but  in  many  cases,  they 
are  afraid  of  surgery. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  young  woman,  of  twenty-three 
years;  blonde,  large,  always  ailing.  Her  family  physi- 
cian reported  that  she  had  tonsilitis  several  times  a  year. 
She  was  a  wonderful  swimmer  and  worked  hard  in  school 
as  the  muscular  motor  do;  she  was  indeed  unhappy  be- 
cause of  being  so  strong.  She  was  nevertheless  sickly. 
An  examination  showed  an  infected  mouth  and  hyper- 
trophied  tonsils  with  a  general  state  of  subacute  inflam- 
mation in  her  throat.  No  adenoids.  She  went  to  a  hos- 
pital next  day.  Two  days  later,  she  was  out.  One  week 
later,  she  was  back  at  school.  Six  months  later,  she  was 
a  new  woman ;  stronger,  heavier,  and  happier.  One  year 
later,  she  was  in  a  great  city  newspaper  editorial  office, 
successfully  filling  a  position  that  required  perfect  health 
as  well  as  natural  force  and  poise,  at  a  salary  beyond  her 
possible  reach  in  ten  years  in  any  school  system. 

Another  instance  is  more  unusual.  The  man  was  past 
fifty  years  of  age,  a  school  principal,  never  married.  He 
had  severe  kidney  disease.  Two  surgical  operations  ef- 
fected a  radical  change.  In  six  months,  he  was  back  at 
work.  In  one  year,  he  was  married.  Four  years  later, 
he  was  in  a  state  of  health  and  vigor  such  as  he  had  not 
known  since  his  youth.  Surgery  gave  him  a  physical 
rebirth. 

The  world  war  has  both  revealed  the  wonders  of  mod- 
ern surgery  and  also  amazingly  stimulated  its  progress 
and  development.  The  new  age  will  see  in  the  fields  of 
peace  the  larger  fruits  of  these  war-miracles  of  the  field 
and  base  hospitals. 

Among  the  diseases  now  in  many  instances  immedi- 
ately curable  in  their  early   stages  by  surgery  without 


MEDICINE  AND  SURGERY  265 

medication  are  these,  viz:  —  Catarrh;  gallstones  and  cal- 
culi generally  in  liver,  bladder  and  kidneys ;  appendicitis ; 
eye-inflammations;  and  mastoiditis.  Such  are  a  few 
illustrations.  Until  modern  surgery  has  spoken,  it  may 
be  a  serious  mistake  to  imagine  that  some  particular  dis- 
ease is  incurable  and  irremediable. 

An  instance  in  point  was  that  of  a  teacher  whose  face 
for  years  was  disfigured  by  pimples  and  blotches.  This 
skin  trouble  made  her  so  unhappy  that  she  would  not  fre- 
quent general  society.  But  she  found  a  specialist,  a  prac- 
titioner of  the  finest  standing,  who  by  surgical  methods 
completely  cured  her  in  three  months  so  that  the  disease 
never  returned.  Were  this  a  medical  work,  the  method 
might  be  presented  here. 

The  high  cost  of  surgery  is  often  cited  as  a  reason  for 
avoiding  it.  But  in  truth  generally  the  surgical  operation 
costs  much  less  than  medical  treatment  more  or  less  irreg- 
ularly called  in.  The  too  thrifty  need  sometimes  to  be  re- 
minded that  not  many  surgical  operations  cost  as  much  as 
a  decent  funeral  and  burial.  Of  course,  teachers  are  self- 
respecting  and  often  do  not  like  to  explain  that  they  have 
not  fifteen  or  fifty  or  possibly  a  hundred  dollars  in  cash 
on  hand ;  perhaps,  their  disease  has  caused  their  poverty. 
But  most  physicians  and  surgeons  are  very  kind  to  teach- 
ers in  such  circumstances.  The  general  spirit  of  the  pro- 
fession is  beautiful.  Besides  this,  men  who  are  good 
physicians  and  surgeons  delight  in  curing  the  sick. 

Ordinary  persons  do  not  enjoy  telling  about  or  listening 
to  tales  of  physical  woe;  but  the  physician  and  the  sur- 
geon are  extraordinary  persons. 

Sometimes,  it  takes  moral  courage  to  "  go  under  the 
knife."  Many  operations  are  now  performed  under  local 
anesthesia.  Indeed,  complete  anesthesia  under  ether  and 
chloroform  is  necessary  only  for  radical  and  distinctly 
serious  operations. 


266   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Finally,  pain  is  the  lot  of  woman ;  there  is  no  pain  worse 
than  that  of  the  woman  in  childbirth.  Those  who  shrink 
from  surgical  operations  might  do  well  to  remember  that 
those  who  cannot  face  and  endure  pain  are  scarcely  fit  to 
live  anyway.  The  grit  to  endure  surgery  is  a  fair  cer- 
tificate of  sound  human  character. 

No  man  knows  where  the  triumphs  of  surgery  will  end. 
Modern  science  and  art  have  at  last  availed  to  operate 
even  upon  the  heart  itself.  Brain  operations  are  com- 
mon. The  entire  stomach  may  be  taken  away;  or  five 
feet  of  the  bowel ;  and  the  recoveries  may  be  perfect  and 
permanent,  greatly  prolonging  life  and  bringing  happi- 
ness. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  AND  ARRANGEMENT 
OF  HOME 

IN  the  care  of  one's  health,  too  often  five  closely  asso- 
ciated environmental  features  are  totally  ignored  be- 
cause they  are  not  even  observed ;  and  even  when  ob- 
served, very  often  they  are  pushed  aside  and  neglected 
because  they  seem  to  be  of  no  importance  to  the  observer. 
These  five  features  are, — 

1.  Choice  of  habitat. 

2.  Choice  of  location  within  this  habitat. 

3.  Choice  of  home. 

4.  Arrangement  within  the  home. 

5.  Arrangement  of  bedroom. 

A  mistake  in  any  one  of  these  five  matters  may  lead  to 
morbidity  and  even  to  death,  as  the  facts  of  experience 
abundantly  prove. 

First,  when  one  has  any  choice  of  position  open,  one 
should  notice  not  merely  the  salaries  but  also  the  vital 
statistics  connected  with  the  various  openings  from  which 
one  may  choose. 

The  records  of  the  various  registration  areas  of  the 
L'nited  States  through  a  long  term  of  years  shows  that 
among  all  American  cities  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis,  "  the 
twin  cities  of  the  Northwest,"  stand  very  high  in  health, 
appearing  to  average  only  10  deaths  per  thousand  per 
year.  This  may  be  due  in  part  to  the  Scandinavian  stock 
in  the  neighborhood,  which  is  famously  long-lived ;  but  the 
climates  of  Scandinavia  and  of  the  Northwest  may  have 

267 


268   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

quite  as  much  to  do  with  the  long  lives  of  the  dwellers 
in  "  the  twin  cities  "  as  the  breeds  of  the  men  there. 
Even  Scandinavians  are  not  all  of  one  breed ;  rather  they 
are  of  three  distinct  breeds,  all  of  them  long-lived,  though 
not  equally  so. 

On  the  other  side,  there  are  cities  with  conspicuously 
bad  records  in  respect  to  deaths  and  serious  illnesses. 
Anyone  may  look  them  up  in  the  census  reports  and  even 
in  the  larger  annual  almanacs.  In  some  of  these  cities, 
there  are  annual  averages  of  as  high  as  35  and  even  45 
deaths  per  thousand. 

When  1,000  people  live  continuously  in  a  city  with  a 
death  rate  of  10  per  annum,  their  average  age  at  death  is 
50  years,  while  as  a  matter  of  theoretical  statistics  ic  sur- 
vive to  be  100  years  old,  20  at  least  99  years ;  30,  98  years, 
etc.  Any  observer  who  takes  the  trouble  to  investigate 
the  cities  of  the  Northwest  immediately  notices  the  very 
large  number  of  persons  who  have  attained  70  and  even 
80  years  of  age. 

But  when  1,000  people  live  continuously  in  a  city  with 
a  death  rate  of  20  per  annum,  their  average  age  at  death 
is  but  25  years.  Many  American  cities  are  content  with 
this  record.  (It  was  18  per  1,000  even  in  supposedly 
healthful  New  York,  our  greatest  city,  in  1918.)  And  in 
cities  and  towns  with  the  very  bad  record  of  perhaps  40 
per  1 ,000  per  annum,  the  average  age  at  death  is  but  1 2^2 
years. 

Of  course,  practically,  the  situation  is  never  like  this  in 
truth,  for  even  in  the  worst  cities  some  persons  survive 
to  be  70,  80,  even  90  and  occasionally  100  years  of  age. 
These,  however,  are  the  ones  who  warp  the  average  up 
too  high.  Practically,  what  one  finds,  say,  in  a  city  of 
perhaps  100,000  people  with  a  death  rate  of  18  per  1,000 
is  a  set  of  statistics  something  like  these,  for  a  term  of 
years,  viz. — 


•  >F  HABITAT  269 

Dying  above  90  years  of  age 1 

ig  from  80-89  years  of  age 15 

70-79      50 

60-69             "     "      I0° 

50-59      '      150 

40-49     J5o 

30-39     x75 

20-29     M      "    "     200 

10-19     "      "     "     250 

1-9       "      "    N     300 

under  1  year  of  age 400 


Total   1,791 

Another  city  with  perhaps  the  same  death  rate  may 
have  many  more  deaths  under  50  years  of  age  and  many 
less  therefore  over  50  years  of  age.  Probably,  the  former 
is  a  residential  city  of  the  North  or  Pacific  Coast,  while 
the  latter  may  be  an  industrial  city  of  the  South  or  East. 

This,  however,  is  not  quite  so  important  as  the  definite 
inquiry  into  the  deaths  of  teachers  in  service,  where  the 
records  of  some  cities  are  very  much  worse  than  in  other 
cities.  Climate,  general  city  sanitation,  and  special  school- 
house  sanitation  make  very  great  differences. 

The  same  differences  are  to  be  found  in  country  dis- 
tricts. A  village  like  a  town  or  city  may  have  a  salubri- 
ous or  a  morbific  site ;  it  pays  to  find  out  before  one  ac- 
cepts a  position.  Some  cities  lie  in  deep  valleys  between 
mountains.  Some  cities  are  typhoid  centers.  Some  cities 
have  heavy  winter  and  spring  rains.  Some  cities  are 
surrounded  by  marshes.  Some  cities  have  strong,  wet 
winds. 

There  is  a  fall  line  in  Massachusetts  forty-five  miles 
back  from  the  coast  immediately  below  which,  for  months 
in   spring  and  autumn  every  morning,   there  are   long, 


270   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

heavy  fogs.  The  same  is  true  of  the  city  of  Washington, 
and  of  many  points  for  four  hundred  miles  southward. 
Yet  above  this  fall  line  upon  the  plateau,  conditions  are 
notably  healthful. 

Some  cities  have  very  heavy  local  rains.  The  same 
considerations  apply  to  villages  and  to  the  countryside. 
Persons  with  weak  eyes  should  keep  away  from  the  sun- 
lighted  Southwest  with  its  3,500  hours  of  cloudless  sky  a 
year  and  seek  the  Northeast  with  its  2,250  hours  or  less. 

Some  cities  have  climates  that  develop  many  sore 
throats  and  similar  ills,  while  other  cities  develop  rheu- 
matism. It  is  not  true  that  "  there  are  equal  troubles 
everywhere;  if  it's  not  one  thing,  it's  another."  Of 
course,  everywhere  diseases  end  most  lives ;  and  every- 
where men  fall  sick  either  from  epidemic  or  self -origi- 
nated diseases.  But  the  truth  is  that  some  localities  are 
astonishingly  free  of  disease,  while  other  localities  are  so 
especially  cursed  with  disease  that  their  very  soils  seem 
to  be  infected,  and  the  disease-carriers  among  the  popula- 
tion are  dangerously  numerous. 


A   COMPARISON   OF   DEATH    RATES 

An  investigation  of  over  200  cemeteries  showed  ex- 
tremely different  results.  In  two  cemeteries,  side  by  side, 
belonging  to  two  nearby  churches,  also  side  by  side,  the 
respective  averages  at  death  of  all  the  numbers  of  the 
dead  were  56  and  34  years  of  age.  An  investigation 
showed  the  causes. 

1.  The  church  with  the  better  record  had  few  drinkers 
of  alcoholic  stimulants. 

2.  It  had  a  much  higher  per  cent  of  well  educated 
persons. 

3.  It  had  a  much  higher  per  cent  of  owners  of  business 
enterprises,  of  farms,  etc. 


CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  - 1 

4.  It  had  a  much  higher  per  cent  of  adults  to  the  whole 
population. 

5.  Its  members  came  from  a  considerably  greater  va- 
riety of  stocks  and  breeds. 

6.  They  married  later  in  life;  and  a  smaller  percentage 
of  them  married. 

From  these  causes,  it  was  easy  to  discover  why  the 
other  church  had  a  worse  record  in  respect  to  the  average 
age  at  death. 

1.  Its  members,  both  men  and  women,  were  mostly 
"  drinking  persons," —  beer  and  tea  were  their  favorite 
beverages.     Also  they  were  heavy  eaters. 

2.  They  were  generally  ignorant. 

3.  Mostly  they  were  the  wage-employes  of  others  and 
had  to  obey  clock,  calendar,  rules  and  orders,  ailing  or 
not,  or  lose  their  jobs. 

4.  They  had  large  families  of  children, —  and  the  death 
rates  both  of  the  children  and  of  the  mothers  were  very 
high. 

5.  Mostly  they  came  of  blond  Saxon  ancestry  and  were 
liable  to  the  diseases  characteristic  of  this  stock,  which  is 
not  hardy  though  it  is  vital  and  is  in  that  sense  healthy 
enough.  It  is  not,  however,  even  at  its  best  vigorously  re- 
nstmt  to  disease  like  the  Scotch  and  Welsh. 

6.  They  married  young  and  had  large  families  early  in 
life,  setting  up  thereby  home-conditions  very  trying  to 
the  parents. 

Investigation  also  showed  that  the  church  with  the 
higher  death  rate  controlled  the  public  school  affairs,  in- 
cluding the  selection  of  teachers.  Now  some  of  these 
aspects  of  vital  statistics  would  not  affect  the  question 
whether  or  not  a  teacher  should  accept  a  position  in  the 
schools  of  this  country  village;  but  others  would  affect  it. 
The  prevalence  of  certain  dJJCltgi  such  as  pneumonia  and 
typhoid  in  this  village  constituted  a  menace  to  health. 


272   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

The  general  ignorance  of  hygiene  and  of  sanitation  made 
the  work  of  the  teachers  much  more  difficult.  Moreover, 
they  were  a  hospitable  and  friendly  folk,  expecting  others 
to  join  with  them  in  eating  and  in  drinking  at  their  home 
meals,  which  were  truly  feasts  of  good  things. 

The  particular  site  was  a  wind-swept  plain  with  no 
forests  or  even  woodlots  anywhere  near  the  roads  that 
led  to  the  central  schoolhouse,  a  site  objectionable  in 
summer  for  want  of  cool  shade  and  in  winter  for  want  of 
wind-breaks. 

Such  illustrations  may  be  multiplied  without  adding 
anything  but  evidence  by  way  of  proof.  It  is  one  matter 
to  teach  in  the  cotton  mill  cities  of  eastern  Massachusetts 
and  a  different  matter  to  teach  in  the  residential  suburbs 
of  Boston  and  a  vastly  different  matter  to  teach  in  a 
Cape  Cod  village.  Still  greater  extremes  are  offered  by 
the  schools  of  the  Dakota  plains  or  of  the  irrigation  proj- 
ects of  the  Rocky  Mountain  region. 

It  is  a  healthy  and  a  wise  instinct  that  prompts  anyone 
to  make  inquiries  as  to  the  habitat  itself  before  deciding 
to  take  a  school  there.  Anyone  who  is  free  to  seek  a 
teaching  position  anywhere  does  well  to  find  out  the 
climate  and  other  health  characteristics  of  various  locali- 
ties. The  variety  of  climates  in  America  is  truly  incred- 
ible at  first  impression.  Between  the  sections  where  the 
snow  falls  in  the  winters  to  depths  of  a  dozen  feet  and 
where  it  stays  on  the  ground  more  than  five  months  and 
the  sections  about  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  where  the  winters 
are  short,  mild  and  damp ;  and  again  between  the  sections 
where  summer  breezes  and  winter  winds  blow  from  the 
mountain  tops  to  the  sections  of  the  Pacific  Coast  where 
the  year  is  properly  divided  not  into  cold  and  hot  but  into 
wet  and  dry,  there  are  very  great  differences  that  vitally 
concern  the  health  of  every  one,  including  teachers,  who 
must  go  out  of  doors  daily  in  all  weathers. 


CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  273 

Neither  geographies  nor  guidebooks  are  wholly  trust- 
worthy. The  best  information  comes  only  from  longtime 
residents  who  have  no  real  estate  to  sell ! 


THE   HOME   LOCATION 

Once  that  the  habitat  has  been  chosen  or  otherwise 
determined,  the  second  question  concerns  location  within 
the  habitat.  Usually,  in  every  city  and  upon  the  country- 
side, some  localities  are  much  better  than  others.  The 
question  must  be  asked  by  any  wise  person  rather  from 
the  point  of  view  of  health  conditions  than  of  social 
advantages. 

There  is  one  small  city  in  this  country  with  no  less  than 
five  different  sources  of  water  supply,  viz. — 

1.  Driven  artesian  deep  wells  that  supply  about  one- 
fourth  of  the  inhabitants. 

2.  A  small  brook  that  supplies  about  one-half  of  the 
city. 

3.  Cisterns  taking  rain  water  from  the  house-roofs. 

4.  Private  artesian  deep  wells. 

5.  Springs  in  back  lots  and  in  cellars. 

This  city  has  a  hillside  location,  and  in  over  one-half 
of  it,  outside  privies  are  still  permitted. 

The  brook  water  in  time  of  freshet  runs  mud.  The 
whole  stream  at  any  time  is  wide  open  to  infection. 

In  a  certain  city,  the  mouth  of  the  main  sewer,  which 
discharges  into  a  brook,  is  within  a  few  hundred  feet  of  a 
great  factory  surrounded  by  tenements. 

In  another  city,  there  is  a  vast  abattoir  to  the  south- 
east from  which  upon  certain  winds  come  overpowering 
stenches.  The  southeastern  quarter  of  the  city  is  unde- 
sirable for  residence  by  persons  with  sensitive  olfactories, 
for  these  stenches  sometimes  induce  in  such  persons  nau- 
sea and  other  troubles. 


274   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Some  cities  lies  partly  upon  hillsides  and  partly  in 
valleys.  There  will  be  in  such  cities  a  variety  of  local 
climates.  It  makes  a  deal  of  difference  whether  one  lives 
upon  a  northeast  slope  or  not.  Southern  hill  slopes  are 
generally  best  for  residence  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
United  States. 

When  a  city  lies  upon  a  plain,  because  most  winds  are 
westerly,  by  living  upon  the  west  side,  one  avoids  the 
smoke  of  city  factories,  mills,  stores  and  houses. 

That  on  a  great  scale,  the  vast  metropolitan  population 
about  New  York  harbor  has  materially  changed  the  cli- 
mate of  the  land  eastward  by  heating  and  drying  and 
filling  the  air  with  dust,  smoke  and  gas  for  many  miles 
eastward,  no  well  informed  person  doubts.  Both  the  rain 
gauge  and  the  thermometer  show  this.  So  on  a  small 
scale,  every  city  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  affects  to 
an  extent  the  climate  immediately  to  its  eastward. 

The  first  twenty-two  cities  of  our  country  in  area  are 
all  upon  waterways, —  ocean,  bay,  lake  or  great  river.  In 
general,  anyone  does  well  to  avoid  an  all-the-year  home 
upon  or  near  a  waterfront.  The  nuisance  of  mosquitoes 
and  other  insects  makes  it  desirable  to  keep  away  also 
from  ponds,  swamps  and  other  still  water. 

In  the  large  cities,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  find  quiet 
neighborhoods.  The  nights  roar  with  elevated  trains  and 
trolley  cars ;  and  the  early  mornings  rattle  with  milk 
wagons.  Yet  there  are  differences  between  localities. 
It  is  better  to  travel  some  miles  and  find  a  moderately 
quiet  location  rather  than  to  lose  sleep  night  and  morning 
by  living  on  a  street  near  one's  school.  It  is  true  that 
the  pupils  and  parents  dwell  in  'the  din,  night  and  day, 
year  in  and  year  out;  it  is  also -true  that  many  teachers 
seem  "  able  to  stand  the  ceaseless  racket  " ;  but  noise  both 
dulls  the  mental  activities  and  robs  the  vital  reserves,  and 


CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  275 

thereby  night  noise  spoils  one's  efficiency  as  a  day  teacher 
and  shortens  one's  life. 

The  rule  then  is  this :  —  Wherever  one  is  to  teach,  try  to 
find  the  most  healthful  part  of  the  place  in  which  to  live 
and,  if  possible,  live  there.  To  this,  there  is  a  natural 
corollary, —  when  one  locality  proves  upon  trial  to  be 
unhealthful,  get  out  of  it  as  soon  as  possible  and  into 
the  best  locality  open  to  one's  homemaking. 


THE   RESIDENCE   ITSELF 

The  third  feature  of  the  environment  connected  with 
one's  life  is  that  of  the  choice  of  the  house  itself.  Of 
course,  in  very  large  cities,  there  are  no  houses  with 
grounds  and  trees ;  but  elsewhere  one  often  has  a  consider- 
able range  of  choice. 

Stone  houses  are  warm  in  winter  and  usually  cool  in 
summer.  Seldom,  however,  do  they  have  verandas  upon 
which  in  good  weather  one  may  sit  of  an  evening  and 
enjoy  the  air. 

Brick  houses  are  warm  in  winter,  but  generally  they  are 
damp  both  winter  and  summer. 

Corner  houses  have  more  air  circulation,  but  they  are 
also  noisier  than  inside  houses. 

In  summer,  it  is  delightful  to  have  trees  in  the  yard 
of  a  small  city  home ;  but  except  in  arid  sections,  too  many 
trees  are  worse  than  none  at  all  because  they  release  too 
much  moisture  and  block  the  breezes. 

A  frame  house  with  grounds  about  it,  with  some  trees 
but  not  too  many,  inside  the  block  and  not  upon  the 
corner,  set  well  back  from  the  street,  makes  the  best 
home  generally  for  the  teacher. 

When  one  must  seek  lodgings  and  board,  which  is  the 
lot  of   most   teachers,   some   other   inquiries   are   worth 


276   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

making.  The  obvious  ones  concern  the  number  of  other 
inmates  of  the  house,  their  times  of  rising  and  retiring  and 
other  social  or  antisocial  habits,  the  children,  if  any,  and 
the  use  of  a  general  parlor  and  of  other  rooms. 

Into  some  other  matters  also  one  should  inquire  when 
there  is  any  choice  of  rooms. 

More  than  one  teacher  has  died  from  defective  plumb- 
ing in  a  boarding  house.  How  is  one  to  tell  positively? 
There  is  no  available  certain  way ;  but  the  mere  appear- 
ance of  some  bathrooms  and  kitchens  is  sufficient  to  warn 
the  wary. 

There  was  a  case  of  severe  and  prolonged  typhoid 
fever  whose  source  was  inscrutable  until  it  happened  that 
some  plumbing  gave  way  when  it  was  found  that  a  soil 
pipe  joint  had  never  been  soldered  and  that  this  soil  pipe 
joint  was  only  a  few  feet  from  the  head  of  the  bed  and 
directly  below  the  clothes  closet  of  the  one  person  in  the 
house  who  at  that  time  contracted  the  disease.  Investiga- 
tion showed,  however,  that  this  particular  bedroom  had  a 
history  of  high  morbidity  and  mortality  despite  the  fact 
that  it  had  five  windows  upon  a  southeast  corner.  It  is 
by  no  means  to  be  supposed  that  the  infections  came 
directly  from  the  gases  of  the  soil  pipe ;  but  it  is  probable 
that  these  gases  lowered  the  vital  tone  of  the  occupants  of 
the  room. 

The  safest  plumbing  is  the  exposed  modern  scientific 
plumbing.  A  bathroom  tiled  with  enamelled  fixtures 
connected  with  exposed  nickel-plated  plumbing  should  go 
a  long  way  to  offset  any  advantages  whatever  supposed  to 
attach  to  any  other  boarding-house.  Of  course,  the  ideal 
way  is  for  every  teacher  to  have  a  private  bathroom 
equipped  in  modern  style.  This  costs  money;  but  there 
are  few  other  ways  in  which  a  teacher  can  spend  money 
more  advantageously. 

One  who  is  looking  for  lodgings  should  also  ask  about 


CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  277 

the  heating  plant.  Theoretically,  hot  air  properly  humidi- 
fied is  best ;  but  practically  from  several  causes,  it  is  the 
worst.  1.  Generally,  it  is  not  delivered  at  a  proper  point 
in  the  bedroom  to  keep  it  warm  for  afternoon  and  eve- 
ning occupation.  2.  Generally,  it  is  not  humidified  but  is 
as  dry  as  the  air  of  Arizona  in  August.  3.  Practically,  it 
is  hot  in  mild  weather  and  barely  warm  in  cold  weather. 
4.  Often,  the  air  delivered  into  the  room  is  not  taken  from 
outdoors,  ten  feet  above  the  ground  level,  as  it  should  be 
but  from  the  cellar  or  even  from  some  room  in  the  house 
itself.  Therefore,  it  is  not  clean,  fresh  air  full  of  ozone 
but  a  bad  mixture  of  dust,  gases,  damp  and  fumes. 

Practically,  steam  and  hot  water  are  both  good. 

Theoretically  and  practically,  the  heat  of  gas  stoves 
and  open  fires  is  worst  because  with  it  carbon  monoxide 
is  liberated,  which  is  odorless  but  destructive  of  lung 
tissue,  predisposing  one  to  pneumonia,  bronchitis  and 
tuberculosis. 

Also,  it  is  worth  while  to  inquire  about  barns,  poultry 
houses,  garages  nearby  and  canary  birds  or  parrots  in  the 
house. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  teacher  whose  nervous  break- 
down and  death  were  upon  careful  investigation  directly 
attributed  by  competent  observers  to  a  large  poultry 
yard  full  of  all  manner  of  fowls,  some  of  them  noisy 
from  the  first  crack  of  dawn  every  morning.  She  could 
not  sleep  because  of  the  din.  And  circumstances  were 
such  that  she  neither  moved  out  nor  protested  against  this 
invasion  of  her  sleep. 


CHOICE  OF   ROOM 

When  a  teacher  has  any  choice  of  room  in  a  house,  it  is 
well  to  consider  several  of  the  factors  involved.  It  is 
pleasant  to  have  a  large  room,  but  more  important  to 


27S       THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

have  one  in  which  the  sun  shines  for  a  few  hours  every 
day.  A  first  floor  room  may  be  elegantly  furnished,  but 
the  second  floor  has  better  air.  It  is  agreeable  not  to 
climb  over  one  flight  of  stairs,  but  generally  a  third  story 
room  has  still  better  air  and  is  much  more  quiet  at  night. 

It  is  convenient  to  have  a  room  on  the  same  floor  with 
the  general  bathroom  of  a  boarding  house;  but  it  is  a 
noisy  and  at  times  a  disagreeable  association. 

It  may  be  a  mark  of  social  distinction  to  occupy  the 
second  story  front  room  with  an  alcove,  because  this  is 
popularly  considered  the  best  room  in  the  house.  Also,  it 
is  convenient  of  access  for  one's  friends  at  afternoon  tea 
or  committee  meetings.  But  the  front  of  a  city  home  is 
generally  noisier  than  the  rear,  while  the  opposite  is  true 
of  most  rural  homes. 

Some  rooms  have  hideous  wall  paper  while  others  are 
attractive,  even  beautiful. 

In  choosing  a  room,  these  are  the  factors  to  balance, 
one  against  another,  viz. — 

1.  Quiet  vs.  fashionableness.  / 

2.  Interior  convenience  vs.  size. 

3.  Interior  beauty  vs.  accessibility. 

4.  Sunlight  vs.  furniture. 

The  room  that  costs  the  highest  per  week  is  not  invari- 
ably the  best  room  in  the  house  for  a  teacher.  In  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  it  is  wiser  to  occupy  a  small 
room  alone  than  a  large  room  with  one  or  two  friends. 
And  it  is  never  wise  for  two  teachers  to  occupy  one  double 
bed. 

ARRANGING   THE    FURNITURE 

The  (fifth  feature  is  the  interior  arrangement  of  the 
room.  A  competent  room  arranger  can  do,  it  seems,  al- 
most anything  with  any  room  and  transform  a  dreary  box 
into  an  Eden.     Of  course,  to  complete  such  a  transfor- 


CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  279 

mation,  the  right  wall  paper,  the  right  pictures,  the  right 
furniture,  the  right  floor  rugs  are  required;  and  other 
right  things  also,  such  as  window  shades  and  curtains, 
bureau  toilet  articles,  bedspread,  etc.  But  though  some 
boarding  house  rooms  with  their  equipment  are  really 
hopeless,  most  of  them  are  largely  redeemable. 

The  first  desideratum  is  to  get  the  bed  where  at  night 
it  can  be  so  drawn  out  as  to  have  fresh  air  on  four  sides. 
This  is  essential.  Better  still  is  a  sleeping  porch.  One 
should  not  breathe  for  any  time  at  all,  night  or  day,  his 
own  breath  reflected  back  from  a  wall. 

The  second  requirement  is  as  much  open  floor  space  as 
possible  in  a  small  room  or  as  is  desirable  in  a  large 
room.  In  many  American  bedrooms,  there  is  too  much 
furniture;  and  improvement  begins  by  removing  a  chair 
or  a  table. 

The  purpose  of  a  bedroom  is  to  make  the  occupant 
comfortable,  to  put  him  at  his  ease  within  its  four  walls. 
Some  bedrooms  make  their  occupants  uncomfortable, 
fairly  force  them  out,  rasp  their  very  souls.  In  a  real 
home,  such  as  not  many  teachers  have,  there  are  two 
rooms  where  their  souls  expand  and  rest, —  the  library 
and  their  own  bedroom  or  suite  of  rooms. 

The  third  desideratum  in  a  bedroom  is  one  comfortable 
chair  properly  placed  for  the  light  of  day  and  for  read- 
ing by  whatever  artificial  light  the  room  may  have  at 
night.  One  comfortable  chair  is  quite  as  important  as  a 
proper  bureau  or  indeed  anything  about  the  room  save 
only  the  mattress  and  the  springs  upon  the  bed.  Per- 
sons who  are  muscularly  fatigued  can  sleep  anywhere, — 
even  in  moving  freight  cars  without  straw  for  a  bed. 
But  teachers  generally  are  nervously  exhausted  rather 
than  muscularly  fatigued;  they  are  weary  rather  than 
tired ;  and  they  need  easy  springs  and  elastic  mattresses. 
For  winter,  all  wool  blankets  are  less  fatiguing  than  quilts. 


280   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

Sometimes,  a  room  may  have  pictures  that  are  well 
enough  but  are  so  badly  placed  that  they  afford  no  pleas- 
ure. A  few  water  colors,  of  course,  originals  hand- 
painted,  add  wonderfully  to  the  bedroom.  Next  come 
photographs  of  the  works  of  great  artists. 

Every  teacher  should  have  at  least  a  few  favorite  books 
well  bound ;  what  books,  will  depend  upon  the  tastes  of 
the  individual.  One  person  freshens  up  as  soon  as  he 
reaches  his  room  because  he  sees  there  his  own  familiar, 
well  beloved  copy  of  Lowell's  Poems  but  another  prefers 
Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress  while  a  third  desires  always 
to  see  some  new  novel,  soon  to  be  discarded  for  a  still 
newer  one. 

The  one  thing  greatly  to  be  desired  is  such  an  atmos- 
phere in  the  room  as  to  rest  and  release  the  weary  and 
imprisoned  spirit  and  to  restore  the  adult  man  or  woman 
from  the  world  of  children  or  of  youth  to  the  normal 
world  of  full-grown  adults. 


THE    MOTIVES   OF   LIFE 

These  are  the  ideals,  or  to  speak  more  strictly  the  stand- 
ards, that  should  be  definitely  in  the  mind  of  the  teacher 
who  is  trying  to  establish  such  a  home  as  will  serve  to 
rest  one  after  school  and  to  send  one  forth  to  school  joy- 
ously every  morning.  It  is  altogether  normal  to  look  for- 
ward with  pleasure  to  getting  home  from  school  work. 

Normal  persons  do  not  sleep  at  night,  eat  three  meals  a 
day,  take  a  bath  and  a  walk,  and  choose  their  attire  in 
order  that  they  may  go  to  work  at  school  or  at  anything 
else ;  but  normal  persons  work  for  economic  returns  and 
the  social  good  in  order  that  they  may  have  a  home  and 
friends  and  a  whole  life  richly  worthwhile  twenty-four 
hours  a  day  and  every  day  in  the  year.  The  view  that 
out  of  the  workplace,  one  visits  one's  barracks,  cleans  up, 


CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  281 

cats,  sleeps,  dresses  and  eats  again  in  order  to  get  back 
to  the  workplace  proceeds  from  a  misconception  of  the 
nature  of  personality.  Very  properly,  we  measure  men 
by  their  homes,  which  should  be  fair  representations  of 
themselves. 

The  teacher  of  experience  whose  own  home  room  is  not 
attractive  and  restful  never  has  a  schoolroom  that  the 
children  love;  because  one  who  does  not  know  how  to 
make  oneself  happy  and  easy  never  knows  how  to  please 
the  hearts  of  others. 

Such  are  the  standards  respecting  choice  of  habitat  and 
arrangement  of  one's  own  home  as  a  teacher.  Could  they 
all  be  attained,  the  teacher's  would  be  the  ideal  life. 
Practically,  one  must  forego  even  trying  to  meet  all  of 
these  standards.  There  are  but  very  few  cities  in  Amer- 
ica where  it  is  reasonable  to  hope  to  attain  even  a  ma- 
jority of  them.  And  teachers  must  teach  wherever  the 
children  and  youth  are, —  in  the  massed  tenement  districts 
of  cities  and  by  lonely  stretches  of  seacoast  and  upon 
remote  hillsides;  —  and  the  lodging-places  of  teachers 
must  inevitably  be  much  like  the  lodging-places  of  their 
children. 

THE   SCHOOLHOUSE 

In  this  connection,  there  should  be  a  note  respecting  the 
schoolhouse,  the  school  room  and  the  rest  room  of  the 
teacher  at  school.  Once  that  the  appointment  has  been 
accepted,  one  teacher  is  almost  powerless  to  secure  better- 
ment of  conditions.  Nevertheless,  it  is  proper  for  every 
teacher  to  realize  several  truths. 

First,  school  conditions  do  materially  affect  both  the 
health  and  the  happiness  of  the  teacher  who  in  his  own 
interest  should  do  what  he  can  to  make  them  better.  Sit- 
ting down  submissively  and  accepting  slavishly  whatever 
conditions  a  school  affords  constitute  not  loyalty  to  supe- 


282   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

rior  authority  but  both  disloyalty  to  children  and  youth 
at  school  and  also  disregard  of  one's  own  moral  rights  to 
decent  conditions  according  to  the  standards  of  this  mod- 
ern civilized  nation. 

Second,  often  what  one  teacher  cannot  do,  an  organ- 
ized group  either  of  teachers  alone  or  of  teachers  and 
parents  can  through  a  period  of  time,  by  definite  plan  and 
endeavor,  at  last  accomplish.  Team  work  of  the  charac- 
ter indicated  is  not  insubordination  to  superior  authority 
or  wild  radicalism  but  sheer  self-defense  or  at  most  the 
keeping  of  faith  with  the  best  principles  of  this  nation. 

For  America  has  set  her  goal  and  is  bravely  and  suc- 
cessfully working  towards  it, —  a  goal  of  long  and  happy 
lives  for  all  men,  lit  by  the  high  and  resplendent  stars  of 
justice,  brotherly  kindness,  duty  to  the  right  and  beauty. 
Therefore,  both  the  home  and  the  workshop  of  the  teacher 
should  be  creditable  to  the  person  himself  and  to  the  neigh- 
borhood where  he  works  and  lives, —  creditable  according 
to  the  standards  of  the  best  men  and  women  there.  To 
win  such  schoolhouses  and  such  homes, —  sanitary,  fire- 
proof, commodious,  panicproof,  and  beautiful, —  involves 
the  will  to  have  them  on  the  part  alike  of  the  effective 
minority  who  control  society  great  and  small  everywhere 
and  of  the  teachers  themselves.  But  until  we  as  teachers 
desire  good  homes  and  good  schoolhouses,  we  shall  never 
have  them,  for  they  will  not  be  given  to  us.  When  built 
at  all,  they  will  be  given  only  to  those  who  have  aspired 
to  them  and  who  have  struggled  to  win  them  from  a  busy 
world. 

The  teacher  who  proceeds  consciously  or  unconsciously 
upon  the  assumption  that  any  accommodations  in  the  way 
of  lodging-place  and  meals  will  do  well  enough  because  he 
"  isn't  going  to  teach  very  long  "  and  who  therefore  stands 
for  almost  any  degradation  of  surroundings  and  poverty 
of  conditions  as  to  his  own  home  is  making  two  serious 


CHOICE  OF  HABITAT  283 

mistakes,  one  personal,  the  other  social.  The  personal 
mistake  is  that  he  is  accustoming  himself  to  endure  bad 
conditions  and  is  thereby  lowering  his  own  standards  for 
life.  The  social  mistake  is  that  he  is  allowing  the  world 
to  imagine  that  almost  anything  is  good  enough  for  the 
teacher  and  that  school  is  an  affair  anyway  beneath  the 
serious  consideration  of  real  men  and  women. 

Finally,  in  respect  to  one's  own  home,  when  the  lodging- 
house  is  also  the  scene  where  the  meals  are  secured,  the 
inquiring  teacher  should  investigate  and  consider  every- 
thing important  relating  to  the  food-supply ;  and  if  things 
are  done  contrary  to  modern  scientific  knowledge,  should 
either  not  live  at  this  particular  house  or  secure  reform 
of  it. 

There  was  a  case  where  in  a  boarding  house  saucers, 
cups,  knives,  forks  and  spoons  were  washed  in  lukewarm 
water  right  at  the  table  and  served  immediately  to  the 
next  comers  to  the  meals.  This  boarding  house  was  the 
scene  of  a  serious  outbreak  of  typhoid  fever  one  summer. 
Teachers  should  never  tolerate  such  procedures,  for  liv- 
ing as  we  do  public  lives,  even  our  toleration  sets  the 
example  to  others.  To  mind  high  things  enough  to  sup- 
port them,  and  when  need  is,  to  struggle  for  them,  is  part 
of  the  very  profession  of  the  teacher.  Nor  does  it  de- 
tract one  iota  from  the  truly  ethical  nature  of  such  con- 
duct that  we  benefit  ourselves  thereby  as  well  as  the 
public.  To  protect  our  own  health  and  lives  is  in  a  seri- 
ous sense  a  duty  that  we  owe  to  those  others,  who  by 
providing  us  with  buildings  and  books  and  apparatus  and 
salaries  enable  us  to  perform  our  functions  of  standing 
for  truth,  justice  and  beauty  and  of  educating  youth 
accordingly. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
WHAT  IS  WORRY? 

THE  person  who  never  worries  save  when  he  is  scien 
tifically    or    sympathetically    interested    in    others, 
poohpoohs  worry,  and  so  far  as  he  ever  notices  it  per- 
haps wonders  what  for  a  moment  the  worry  is  about  and 
stops  right  there. 

The  person  who  worries  all  the  time  about  anything, 
everything  or  nothing  never  considers  what  worry  is  and 
cannot  be  cured  or  even  helped.  But  the  person  who 
worries  only  at  times  and  then  only  about  some  matters 
is  curable  and  worth  curing. 

Bismarck  was  once  asked  regarding  the  first  Kaiser 
Wilhelm  I,  with  whom  no  one  else  could  get  along,  how 
he  managed  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  his  imperial 
master. 

"  Oh,"  he  answered,  offhand,  "  I  take  him  as  I  do  the 
weather !  " 

It  is  a  good  story ;  but  some  persons  persist  in  worrying 
about  even  the  weather ! 

What  is  to  be  said  hereafter  about  worrying  and  wor- 
ries and  worriers  is  of  possible  interest  only  to  those  who 
worry  part  of  the  time  about  some  matters  but  who  do  not 
worry  all  the  time  about  something  or  other  or  about 
nothing  at  all.  The  person  who  never  worries  and  who 
does  not  care  whether  others  worry  or  not  is  seldom 
highly  intelligent,  but  he  is  spared  a  deal  of  trouble.  It 
takes  trouble  to  develop  intelligence  to  know  that  there 
is  trouble.  Some  worry  is  almost  inevitable  to  the  man 
of  intelligence. 

284 


WHAT  IS  WORRY?  285 

But  the  person  who  is  an  habitual  worrier  is  on  the 
1  grade;  both  mind  and  body  must  suffer  and  dete- 
riorate. The  worry  by  its  ceaseless  pressure  shuts  off 
.he  gates  of  relief  in  play  and  endeavor  and  in  reconcili- 
ation to  fate. 

What,  then,  is  worry?  Essentially,  it  is  an  inner  but 
yet  consciously  admitted  inadequacy  to  the  problems 
i  id  tasks  that  confront  one.  Worry  is  a  pressure  to 
attack  something  beyond  one's  powers  to  conquer;  and 
it  is  unwillingness  to  give  up  and  to  admit  defeat.  Worry 
is  the  sense  of  inner  weakness,  but  it  is  not  the  lowest 
and  the  worst  form  of  such  a  sense  of  weakness. 

There  are  persons  whose  physical  and  moral  courage 
and  fortitude  are  so  low  that  they  refuse  even  to  face 
difficulties.  They  either  sit  down  obstinately  where  they 
are  or  else  retreat.  These  are  the  cowards;  they  never 
worry.  They  do  not  even  care  whether  others  worry 
about  them  or  not.  They  will  not  hold  conversations 
with  persons  who  are  disagreeable  to  themselves.  They 
even  decline  to  open  letters  from  those  whom  they  dis- 
like or  whom  they  suspect  of  being  critical  and  unfriendly. 
Such  persons  cross  to  the  other  side  of  the  street  rather 
than  so  much  as  pass  the  place  of  business  of  "  an  enemy." 
As  school  teachers,  they  live  more  or  less  like  hermits. 
All  this  is  due  to  the  sense  of  inner  insufficiency  to  meet 
adequately  what  life  presents  to  them. 

The  sense  of  inner  weakness  that  causes  worry  is  a 
somewhat  different  and  a  distinctly  higher  aspect  of  mind 
and  character.  It  faces  but  fears  danger;  it  faces  for- 
ward and  waits  for  things  to  happen  from  others,  and 
frets  because  it  feels  unable  to  prevent  them. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  whole  nature  of  worry.  In 
psychological  terms,  worry  is  the  persistence  in  conscious- 
ness of  what  one  desires  out  of  consciousness.  The  man 
who  worries  cannot   forget,  which   means   "lay  aside." 


286   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

He  cannot  frustrate  memory,  but  is  the  victim  of  his 
recalled  images.  To  be  unable  to  rid  oneself  of  persist- 
ing ideas  is  not  always  unfortunate;  it  depends  mainly 
upon  what  the  ideas  are.  To  be  full  of  some  ideas  is  to 
be  fortunate.  Genius  is  nothing  but  knowing  and  sur- 
rendering to  the  great  worthwhile  ideas.  A  man  of 
genius  to  an  extent  always  worries  until  he  wins ;  but  the 
world  does  not  complain  about  the  worries  of  such  a 
man, —  at  least  not  because  they  are  worries. 

In  the  ordinary  sense,  however,  of  the  term,  that  is, 
according  to  common  sense, —  worry  is  excessive  consid- 
eration of  ideas  not  worthwhile.  This  appears  when  one 
inventories  the  subjects  about  which  teachers  worry. 

Frequently,  teachers  worry  about  the  way  their  chil- 
dren behave  and  do  their  work  at  school.  In  some  cases, 
tired  teachers  dream  that  their  children  misbehave  so 
badly  that  they  lose  their  positions  or  that  they  perform 
so  poorly  in  examinations  as  to  cause  visitors  to  condemn 
or  ridicule  themselves.  Such  dreams  show  that  work  and 
worry  are  bringing  the  dreamers  into  serious  ill-health. 

Another  field  in  which  grow  many  of  the  weeds  of 
worry  of  teachers  is  that  of  their  relations  with  their 
superior  officers, —  superintendents,  board  members,  etc., 
and  with  parents.  These  worries  concern  many  matters 
such  as 

i.  Visits,  conferences  and  meetings. 

2.  Tenure  and  salaries. 

3.  Complaints  of  parents. 

4.  Incorrigible  children. 

5.  Rules,  orders  and  directions  from  superiors. 

6.  Reports  to  superiors. 

7.  Personal  relations  and  associations. 

These  are  such  as  are  inseparably  connected  with  every 
style  of  employment ;  they  or  their  like  are  to  be  found  in 
factories,   in   stores,   even   in   churches.     They   are   not 


WHAT  IS  WORRY?  287 

wholly  to  be  escaped  even  in  homes  and   families  and 
among  kindred. 

ABSENCE  OF   SELF-ALIENATION 

Why  then  do  teachers  suffer  more  than  any  other  per- 
sons from  these  worries  of  social  relationships?  They 
think  they  do;  but  it  is  largely  imagination,  due  to  the 
misunderstanding  of  a  situation  resultant  from  absence  of 
self-alienation  in  teachers,  for  self-alienation  is  upon  a 
psychological  plane  higher  than  most  teachers  have  at- 
tained. And  some  of  those  who  worry  are  worrying 
solely  because  they  cannot  see  themselves  as  others  see 
them, —  they  cannot  become  detached  from  themselves 
and  stand  off  and  look  at  themselves  as  objects  in  the 
social  scene.  It  is  utterly  useless  to  try  to  explain  self- 
effacement,  self-alienation,  social  detachment,  aloofness 
from  oneself  to  those  who  have  not  yet  experienced  this. 

No  self -detached  person  is  capable  of  the  many  severe 
worries  of  the  self-absorbed  persons.  Indeed,  it  appears 
that  the  direct  thinking  out  of  oneself  into  the  lives  of 
others  is  itself  both  the  solution  of  worries  and  the  means 
of  freedom  for  all  future  worries. 

There  are  a  thousand  anecdotes  to  illustrate  the  many 
values  of  troubles  once  solved  as  prophylactics  against 
future  worries  regarding  trouble.  The  real  veteran  in 
life  has  learned  not  to  worry  and  how  not  to  worry. 
Whether  this  lesson  can  be  taught  to  others  by  a  veteran 
in  the  experiences  of  life  is  somewhat  doubtful.  To  be 
able  to  learn  from  the  experiences  of  others  is  to  possess 
a  rare  and  precious  gift. 

SOME   CASES   OF   WORRY 

Perhaps  a  few  of  these  many  anecdotes  may  help  some 
one  who  worries. 


288   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

She  was  an  earnest  member  of  her  church  but  very 
unhappy  because  she  was  discontented  and  aware  of  being 
discontented.  She  went  to  her  pastor  and  told  him  about 
her  great  trouble  in  that  not  even  her  religion  gave  her  a 
contented  mind.  She  made  several  calls  upon  him  with- 
out relief.  Then  for  a  month  or  more,  she  refrained 
from  laying  her  burden  upon  his  soul.  At  length,  he  met 
her  on  the  street,  and  stopping  her,  asked  how  she  was 
getting  on  with  her  unhappy  trouble  of  not  having  a  con- 
tented mind.  Her  answer  was  this, — "  Well,  I  just  de- 
cided that  I'd  be  content  not  to  have  a  contented  mind !  " 

Another  story  illustrates  how  differently  we  assess  the 
values  and  troubles  of  life.  The  two  young  men  of 
business  were  good  friends.  One  morning,  Charles  went 
to  Edward  and  said  he  had  a  note  of  $200  that  he  could 
not  meet  and  that  if  he  did  not  meet  it,  the  note  would  go 
to  protest,  which  might  force  him  into  insolvency. 

Edward  replied, — "  That  is  certainly  too  bad.  I  don't 
see  how  very  well  I  could  let  you  have  the  money,  but  if 
you  cannot  raise  it  by  two  o'clock,  I'll  try  to  get  the  $200 
for  you  before  the  bank  closes." 

At  two  o'clock,  Charles  came  around  and  said  that  he 
could  not  raise  the  money ;  he  had  tried  in  every  quarter. 
Would  his  friend  save  him  from  disgrace  and  perhaps 
ruin? 

"  I'll  be  at  the  bank  at  2  45  p.  m.  with  the  money.  I'd 
do  almost  anything  for  you,  my  friend." 

And  so  before  the  bank  closed  that  afternoon,  Charles 
took  up  the  loan  for  his  dear  friend  Edward.  As  they 
left  the  bank,  Edward  seized  his  benefactor's  hand  and 
wrung  it  effusively,  saying, — 

"  Why,  man,  if  you  hadn't  let  me  have  that  $200,  do 
you  know  that  my  wife  would  have  had  to  draw  the 
money  from  her  own  savings  bank  account?  Just  think 
of  it !  " 


WHAT  IS  WORRY?  289 

And  Edward  answered  sadly,  "  So  ?  That  would  have 
been  too  bad  for  your  wife,  I'm  sure.  I  got  the  money 
by  pawning  my  wife's  jewelry.     Goodbye!  " 


THOUGHT   AND   ENDEAVOR 

1.  Hard  thinking  is  not  worry.  In  some  instances, 
deliberate,  persistent,  intense  thinking  solves  the  problem 
that  causes  the  worry.     Why  not  set  to  and  think  ? 

2.  In  some  instances,  seriously  considered,  the  worry 
is  about  something  of  no  real  and  vital  importance.  Seri- 
ously considered,  there  are  not  over  half  a  dozen  topics 
worth  worrying  about;  these  serious  topics  concern  life 
and  death  directly  and  indirectly,  sin  and  remorse,  debt 
beyond  reasonable  probability  of  payment  and  such  mat- 
ters.    Why  worry  about  trivialities  ? 

3.  In  other  instances,  the  worry  concerns  something 
that  one  is  powerless  to  change.  Man  is  not  captain  of 
his  own  fate ;  and  he  becomes  captain  of  his  own  soul 
partly  by  renouncing  the  ambition  to  master  all  circum- 
stances. 

Emerson  wrote, — 

"  So  near  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 
So  nigh  is  God  to  man, 
When  duty  whispers  low,  '  Thou  must ! ' 
The  youth  replies,  '  I  can ! '  " 

And  swallowing  the  exhortation  whole,  gulping  it  down 
en  bloc,  many  a  person  makes  himself  sick,  tackling  jobs 
and  confronting  situations  that  no  one  person  can  deal 
with  successfully. 

Some  foolish  person  once  said,  "  In  the  bright  lexicon 
of  youth,  there  is  no  such  word  as  '  fail.'  "  But  it  is  the 
puppy  who  sticks  to  the  root,  not  the  grown  dog.     Jesus 


290   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

was  far  wiser  and  often  said  that  no  man  is  responsible 
for  more  than  his  power  to  perform;  is  not  this  part  of 
the  meaning  of  the  parable  of  the  talents? 

Pedants  and  pedagogues,  doctrinaires  and  their  ilk 
often  lay  burdens  upon  others  that  they  will  not  lift  their 
own  hands  to  ease  for  others.  All  "  executives "  and 
"  leaders,"  including  M  educationalists  "  and  "  reformers," 
college  presidents  and  school  superintendents  are  liable  to 
the  temptation  of  asking  their  official  subordinates  (who 
may  nevertheless  be  their  intellectual  and  moral  supe- 
riors) to  do  things  quite  beyond  common  sense. 

Why  worry  over  the  impossible  ? 

There  was  the  case  of  a  young  woman  to  whom  was 
given,  the  first  year  out  of  normal  school,  in  a  city  a  class 
of  over  ninety  children  in  a  makeshift  room  without  ven- 
tilation. She  knew  that  the  burden  was  too  great  to  be 
borne ;  but  she  feared  to  resign  lest  she  could  not  get  an- 
other position  and  might  become  a  burden  upon  her  poor 
old  parents  for  some  months.  The  superintendent  of 
schools  and  board  of  education  refused  to  do  anything 
to  relieve  her, —  they  said  that  she  would  have  to  stand  it. 

She  stood  it  for  eight  months  and  died.  Her  poor 
parents  had  to  pay  the  costs  of  her  burial.  The  city 
school  superintendent  had  to  resign,  such  was  the  public 
indignation  when  the  facts  came  out,  for  that  board  had 
a  cash  balance  of  over  $5,000.  at  the  end  of  the  very 
year  when  they  alleged  that  they  "  could  not  do  any- 
thing." 

Why  keep  on  trying  to  brave  out  the  intolerable? 
When  they  tell  you  that  others  defeat  the  invincible,  don't 
you  believe  it.  That  is  all  well  enough  in  war  against 
barbarians ;  but  it  is  no  rule  for  peaceful,  civilized,  social 
life. 

4.  Because  worry  is  in  part  the  sense  of  insufficiency 
to  a  task  or  problem,  in  some  instances  the  true  solution 


WHAT  IS  WORRY?  291 

is  to  strengthen  oneself  physically  in  order  to  endure. 
Mere  willing  to  endure  is  itself  wearing  to  anyone. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  young  woman  teacher  who  had 
been  given  a  terribly  hard  task, —  governing  fifty-five  chil- 
dren with  a  wretched  man  teacher  in  the  next  room  (it 
was  a  thinly  built,  poorly  heated  2-room  schoolhouse). 
He  was  in  charge  of  twenty  older  children  who  were 
always  in  disorder.  She  talked  the  case  over  with  her 
father, —  the  village  postmaster  in  the  town  next  to  her 
school  district;  —  and  they  decided  what  was  the  thing 
to  do.  She  bought  a  horse  good  for  both  riding  and 
driving ;  and  every  day  either  drove  or  rode  six  miles  to 
her  school  and  back,  and  she  took  care  of  the  horse  her- 
self. Her  father  and  mother  conspired  to  make  her 
home  a  sanitarium;  they  had  her  in  bed  every  night  be- 
fore a  school  day  not  later  than  eight-thirty.  As  the 
result,  in  three  years,  she  had  actually  gained  in  weight 
and  strength  despite  her  school  environment.  This  young 
lady  had  a  Scotch  father  and  a  Dutch  mother;  perhaps 
heredity  accounts  for  their  wise  course  as  a  family. 

The  public  saw  the  struggle  and  the  victory ;  and  this 
woman,  no  longer  very  young,  is  now  recognized  as  the 
best  teacher  in  a  considerable  town. 

A  thorough,  continuous  study  of  one's  own  needs  and 
reactions  may  show  one  what  to  do  in  order  to  become 
strong  enough  to  overcome  some  difficulties, —  but  not 
all,  by  no  means  all  of  them. 

Beware  of  all  flatterers,  whether  they  speak  with  human 
voices  or  are  but  echoes  from  stimulants  or  narcotics. 
Learn  what  not  to  undertake.  Then  having  undertaken, 
learn  what  to  do  in  order  to  be  strong' and  enduring 
enough  to  insure  success.  Do  not  send  good  money  after 
bad ;  try  to  get  new  business.  Some  boys  are  incorrigible ; 
some  children  are  feeble-minded.  Try  them  out  and  hav- 
ing tried,  follow  your  decisions.     Some  school  officers  are 


292   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

impossible.  Having  experienced  their  incompetence  or 
cruelty,  quit  them.  In  truth,  depart,  shaking  off  the  dust 
of  your  shoes  as  witness  against  them. 

5.  We  may  strengthen  ourselves  by  such  physical 
methods  as  are  outlined  here  or  by  various  psychical 
methods,  some  of  which  have  already  been  suggested, 
while  others  may  be  added.  It  pays  to  read  biography 
and  to  discover  what  men  can  and  what  they  cannot 
endure.  Though  it  is  not  true  that  "  what  men  have 
borne,  men  may  bear  "  in  the  sense  that  all  things  are 
endurable  by  any  man  with  the  requisite  bravery  and  for- 
titude, it  still  is  true  that  sometimes  we  are  stronger  than 
we  know  or  even  dare  to  hope.  In  the  general  course  of 
events,  the  troubles  that  we  anticipate  will  probably  not 
be  the  ones  that  in  real  experience  will  ever  bear  upon  us 
heavily.  Moreover,  often  there  comes  help  from  an  un- 
imagined  quarter.  "  While  there's  life,  there's  hope  "  is  a 
good  slogan, —  not  wholly  true, —  and  yet  in  some  in- 
stances apparently  true  as  by  miracle.  No  one  has  yet 
fathomed  the  mystery  of  life ;  no  one  has  yet  ever  read 
even  so  much  as  one  day  of  the  future. 

Any  person  who  has  lived  long  knows  well  that  the 
survivors  of  life's  warfare,  the  victors  in  earth's  battles, 
the  winners  in  the  human  arena  are  not  mostly  those  to 
whom  success  seemed  likely.  Many  an  invalid  outlives 
the  athletes  of  his  youth.  Many  a  poor  man  becomes 
rich,  and  many  a  rich  man  becomes  poor.  There  are 
some  persons  fully  matured  at  twenty  years  of  age ;  they 
never  grow  wiser  or  stronger.  And  there  are  some  who 
change  more  in  essential  character  and  ability  from  twenty 
to  forty  years  of  age  than  they  did  from  ten  to  twenty. 
Even  in  still  later  decades,  here  and  there  are  men  and 
women  growing  and  improving  in  essential  qualities. 

There  was  a  teacher  who  went  back  to  his  twentieth 
college  class  reunion ;  he  had  been  the  class  valedictorian ; 


WHAT  IS  WORRY?  293 

he  walked  in  among  a  score  of  his  classmates,  and  not 
one  recognized  him  or  could  guess  who  he  was.  Yet  in 
that  score  were  some  whose  class  photographs  taken  at 
twenty  years  of  age  would  have  served  admirably  for 
them  at  forty  years  of  age.  Sometimes,  trouble  and 
endeavor  enlarge  and  quicken  a  man  or  woman,  it  seems, 
almost  "  overnight."  It  is  unwise  immediately  upon 
being  confronted  with  what  seems  unbearable  or  impos- 
sible to  surrender  or  retreat. 

6.  Most  nearly  hopeless  are  those  who  insist  upon  la- 
menting the  past. 

The  last  minute  is  as  dead  as  that  minute  when  Brutus 
slew  Caesar  or  that  still  earlier  minute  when  Esau  sold 
his  birthright  to  Jacob  for  a  mess  of  pottage.  And  it  is 
as  idle  for  one  to  regret  what  has  just  happened  as  what 
happened  ten  years  before.  The  worriers  are  always  la- 
menting lost  and  past  opportunities;  and  every  lament 
but  adds  to  the  golden  moments  that  have  been  lost. 
The  same  man  who  worries  about  what  is  going  to  hap- 
pen or  what  may  happen  is  the  very  man  who  worries 
about  what  did  happen  and  torments  himself  because  he 
did  not  prevent  its  happening.  In  psychological  terms, 
this  means  that  his  life  is  a  mere  thread  and  that  his  inter- 
ests are  few  and  confined  narrowly  to  himself.  To  such 
as  this  man  who  worries  over  the  past  and  the  future 
come  these  important  sayings,  viz. — 

"  Now  is  the  accepted  time ;  now  is  the  day  of  salva- 
tion." 

"  Let  the  dead  bury  their  own  dead." 

"  To  him  that  overcometh,  I  shall  be  his  God,  and  he 
shall  be  My  son." 

If  possible,  get  out  of  this  swift  and  narrow  stream  of 
emotional  life.  Forget  yourself  when  you  go  to  bed  and 
remember  that  now  is  the  time  to  sleep. 


294   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 


LAYING   CARE   ASIDE 

That  was  a  very  good  teacher  who  said, — "  When  I 
leave  my  school  and  turn  my  back  upon  the  door,  I  for- 
get it  until  next  morning  when  I  leave  my  home  and  go 
back  to  my  school  again."  This  is  not  to  be  taken  too 
literally.  It  is  not  always  possible  to  clean  up  one's 
desk  and  to  leave  all  one's  work  ready  for  the  next  day 
at  the  hour  when  the  janitor  is  waiting  to  lock  the  school- 
house  door.  Indeed,  it  is  really  better  to  leave  the  school 
when  the  children  do  and  go  out  for  rest  and  play,  even 
if  one  must  do  an  hour's  work  in  the  evening,  than  to 
linger  wearily  at  the  school.  After  school  work  often 
means  work  done  slowly  and  with  many  mistakes.  Nev- 
ertheless, the  principle  implied  in  the  remark  is  correct, — 
"  Work  hard,  play  freely,  and  rest  in  total  obliviousness 
to  one's  usual  tasks."  That  platform  orator  never  really 
does  very  well  who  cannot  get  his  speech  off  his  mind 
either  before  or  after  getting  it  up  out  of  his  throat. 
And  that  teacher  soon  wears  out  who  thinks  ceaselessly 
about  his  teaching  both  before  and  after  giving  the  les- 
son. A  painter  may  work  upon  a  picture  for  an  hour 
too  long;  and  the  painter  who  gets  to  thinking  a  deal 
about  the  pictures  that  he  has  painted  already  will  soon 
cease  to  paint  any  more  pictures. 

Any  one  who  thinks  much  about  the  past  or  who  wor- 
ries about  the  contingent  future,  instead  of  thinking  hard 
about  the  immediate  future, —  the  next  few  minutes,  the 
next  few  days, —  is  in  danger  of  being  classified  by  others 
as  either  anemic  or  senescent.  Theodore  Roosevelt  once 
replied  to  a  request  for  an  engagement  a  year  ahead  that 
he  never  tied  up  his  time  or  bound  his  mind  to  anything 
so  remote  as  a  year  ahead.  This  is  by  no  means  a  uni- 
versally wise  rule,  but  it  serves  for  practical  purposes  as 
a  safeguard  against  worry  about  what  may  never  happen. 


WHAT  IS  WORRY?  295 

The  old  finish  too  often  their  life  careers  in  vain  hopes 
to  get  back  into  the  game  once  more  or  in  equally  vain 
reminiscences.  The  truly  young,  whatever  their  years, 
work,  and  do  not  worry  about  the  work  itself  or  the  re- 
sults. They  follow  truth  and  principle  wherever  these 
lead;  perhaps,  blindly  but  very  often  with  great  success. 

This  is  the  psychological  aspect  of  worry,  which  is 
none  the  less  essentially  a  physiological  process.  Once 
that  one  begins  to  analyze  worry  as  a  process  in  the  two- 
fold nature  of  man  as  body  and  as  mind,  one  has  already 
begun  to  defeat  worry. 

Worry  is  the  admission  of  incompetence  silently  to 
oneself. 

Worry  is  physical  deterioration. 

Worry  is  moral  cowardice. 

Worry  is  obsession  by  ideas. 

Worry  is  victimization  either  by  imagination  or  by 
memory. 

Worry  is  fear  of  the  future,  which  may  never  come. 

Worry  is  evidence  of  self-absorption. 

Worry  is  unwillingness  to  seek  to  accomplish  ends  by 
sufficient  means. 

Worry  is  the  road  to  invalidism  and  to  senility. 

Worry  is  the  enemy  of  work  and  the  negation  of  faith. 

Finally,  when  one  worries  about  one's  health,  why  not 
remember  that  for  immediate  purposes  of  accomplish- 
ment, it  is  far  better  to  be  a  strong,  sick  man  than  a  weak, 
well  one ;  and  that  when  a  strong,  sick  man  actually  does 
kill  himself  with  work,  he  never  has  to  worry  at  all. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
WINNING  OLD  AGE:     SUMMARY 

THE  woman  school  superintendent  of  the  Far  West 
county  who  rides  east  an  dwest  more  than  one 
hundred  miles  within  her  own  educational  jurisdiction, 
making  ten,  fifteen,  twenty  miles  a  day  on  horseback,  suf- 
fers from  some  inconveniences  to  health  not  even  im- 
agined by  the  woman  city  school  principal.  She  may  be- 
come ill  when  many  miles  away  from  any  ranch,  alone 
upon  the  plains  or  in  the  mountains.  She  may  not  have 
a  good  bed  one  night  in  five  upon  which  to  sleep.  She 
has  the  fear  often  of  personal  danger.  When  away  from 
the  county  seat  on  school  visitation,  she  has  no  control 
of  her  diet  but  must  eat  what  is  set  before  her  or  go 
hungry.  Only  those  who  have  travelled  in  lonely  lands 
can  imagine  the  routine  of  discomforts  such  a  school  offi- 
cer must  endure.  It  is  a  case  of  preferring  health  to 
the  preservation  of  the  social  rules  summarized  for  women 
under  the  term  "  modesty,"  which  preference  requires 
moral  valor. 

The  contrast  is  that  of  isolation  versus  crowding. 

There  was  a  woman  city  primary  school  supervisor. 
Her  second  predecessor  back  in  that  position  had  died 
of  overwork  bringing  on  insomnia  and  insanity.  Her 
immediate  predecessor  had  died  of  neurasthenia,  after 
but  six  years  of  experience.  The  friends  of  this  woman 
urged  her  not  to  take  the  position;  but  for  several  rea- 
sons, she  allowed  her  ambition  to  overcome  her  own  bet- 
ter judgment.  These  were  that  she  had  a  family  of  high 
social  position  and  believed  that  with  their  help  she  could 

296 


WINNING  OLD  AGE:     SUMMARY        297 

overcome  some  of  the  hitherto  insuperable  obstacles  to 
success  as  primary  supervisor ;  that  the  salary  was  much 
higher  than  what  she  was  then  receiving;  and  that  she 
really  believed  the  schools  needed  service  of  the  kind 
within  her  power  to  render. 

Six  years  later,  she  had  made  herself  nationally  famous 
for  her  genuine  success,  and  she  was  greatly  beloved  by 
most  of  the  teachers  under  her  guidance.  But  she  was 
ill  in  a  sanitarium  from  work  and  worry.  The  need  of 
money  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  case ;  her  income  was 
three  times  her  salary ;  and  she  lived  at  home  at  no  ex- 
pense. 

There  were  no  physical  peculiarities,  calculated  to  lead 
to  such  a  breakdown ;  this  woman  was  about  fifty  years 
of  age,  of  the  familiar  Anglo-Saxon  type,  with  a  com- 
bination of  two  sometimes  irreconcilable  traits,  amiabil- 
ity and  eager  energy.  Her  body  coefficient  was  2.2,  which 
is  standard. 

Once  in  the  position,  the  same  pressures  fell  upon  her 
as  upon  her  predecessors.  Some  teachers  were  "  pull- 
ing "  for  promotion.  Other  teachers  were  shirking  that 
they  might  enjoy  the  very  active  evening  social  life  of  their 
city.  There  were  always  many  vacancies  to  be  filled,  for 
the  salaries  of  the  teachers  were  low  in  this  city,  and 
the  primary  supervisor  was  forever  training  substitutes. 
The  city  normal  school  duties,  attached  to  the  position, 
filled  in  every  apparently  spare  minute  of  her  time.  An<l 
the  whole  city  system  upon  its  pedagogical  side  swung 
about  this  woman  as  its  first  focus  to  get  the  children 
started.  She  made  the  programs,  the  courses  of  study, 
the  rules  for  more  than  a  thousand  teachers.  Under  the 
rules  of  the  city,  the  primary  supervisor  was  the  effective 
pedagogical  superintendent. 

This  primary  city  supervisor  could  no  more  avert  the 
force  of  those  rules  than  the  Far  West  county  school 


298   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

superintendent  could  turn  aside  the  cold  winds  of  winter 
that  made  her  grateful  for  having  a  warm  horse  under 
her  as  she  rode  in  the  morning  twilight.  Therefore,  after 
a  year  of  life  in  the  sanitarium,  relieved  a  little  by  a  trip 
with  a  nurse  to  Europe,  she  died,  just  as  her  predeces- 
sors had  died,  not  of  any  real  disease  but  of  her  "  job." 

Had  she  shirked  herself,  she  would  have  been  removed 
by  superior  authorities.  Had  she  been  less  amiable  and 
obliging,  she  would  have  lost  social  favor  and  have  been 
quietly  pressed  to  resign.  Perhaps,  some  person  will  yet 
be  found  for  this  position  who  has  "  iron  health  "  and 
who  will  survive  in  it  for  twenty  or  thirty  years ;  but  it  is 
improbable. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  rural  teacher  whose  isolated 
schoolhouse  was  upon  a  bare  plain.  In  that  state,  eleven 
( 1 1 )  per  cent,  of  all  the  schoolhouses  had  no  provisions 
for  the  toilet ;  some  of  these  schoolhouses,  however,  were 
in  the  woods  or  near  farmhouses.  This  woman,  being 
unable  to  take  proper  care  of  her  bodily  needs  for  eight 
hours  daily, —  8:30  a.m.  to  4:30  p.m. —  developed  dis- 
eases and  died  from  them. 


THE   COMPLETED   ROUND  OF   LIFE 

Women  teachers  who  intend  to  live  out  normal  lives, 
who  propose  to  die  at  seventy,  not  at  twenty-five  or  even 
at  fifty  years,  must  bring  themselves  to  face  the  present 
and  the  future  in  the  light  of  the  experiences  of  others. 
Consider  completed  lives.  Consider  the  birth,  develop- 
ment, maturity  and  end  of  one  and  another  of  the  per- 
sons whom  you  have  known  and  who  have  played  their 
last  cards. 

In  most  cases,  success  has  been  a  function  of  intelli- 
gence, industry  and  character,  not  merely  of  industry 
and  character.     In  most  cases,  failure  has  been  a  func- 


WINNING  OLD  AGE:    SUMMARY        299 

tion  of  ignorance,  laziness  and  characterlessness ;  and  ig- 
norance, unwillingness  to  face  the  facts  of  a  definite  situa- 
tion, over-confidence  in  being  able  to  succeed  where  others 
have  failed,  has  played  an  important  part  in  the  failure. 
This  ignorance  has  been  usually  ignorance  as  to  health ; 
most  of  the  failures  of  life  have  proven  that  in  civiliza- 
tion one  must  learn  from  others  how  to  live  physically. 
The  instincts  alone  will  not  show  a  man  the  way  to  health 
and  strength  in  modern  life,  whether  on  the  prairie,  in  the 
swamps,  in  the  mountains,  in  villages,  or  towns,  or  cities. 
Not  even  when  reinforced  by  the  social  traditions  of  fam- 
ily life  and  of  the  other  groups  that  surround  childhood 
are  the  instincts  trustworthy  guides.  That  notion  is  one 
of  the  exploded  theories  of  human  history. 

One  of  the  baseless  notions  afflicting  young  teachers  is 
this, —  that  success  as  a  student  in  school  indicates  an 
adequate  hygienic  preparation  for  success  as  a  teacher  in 
school.  Truth  is  that  the  work  on  one  side  of  the  teach- 
er's desk  differs  radically  from  work  on  the  other  side. 

Another  baseless  idea  is  that  the  teacher  who  has  got- 
ten along  well  enough  in  young  manhood  or  womanhood 
perhaps  for  several  years  in  a  small  town  school  can 
change  to  a  city  school  in  a  different  climate  and  at  a  later 
period  of  physical  development  and  prosper  physically  us- 
ing the  same  regimen  of  life.  The  demands  of  the  city 
upon  health  are  very  different  from  the  demands  of  the 
village.  With  every  added  year  to  one's  age,  with  every 
increase  in  duties  that  draw  upon  one's  vitality,  the  one 
hope  of  continued  health  is  a  perpetually  changing  and 
improving  hygienic  regimen.  Cut-and-dried  rules  will 
not  suffice.  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  health  at 
least  for  all  persons  of  mature  years, —  their  one  way  to 
reach  hale  and  hearty  old  age,  which  is  the  crown  of 
life  and  the  glory  of  civilization.  The  laws  of  nature  are 
not  held  in  abeyance  in  respect  to  health ;  nor  is  it  true 


300   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

that  one  who  loses  his  physical  life  in  service  will  save  it. 

There  are  some  very  conscientious  persons  who  com- 
pletely misconceive  certain  teachings  styled  by  themselves 
Christian  to  the  effect  that  good  men  and  women  can  work 
indefinitely  hard  and  yet  stay  well  and  live  long.  The 
Teacher  whom  they  profess  to  quote  and  to  imitate  took 
both  holidays  and  vacations  frequently.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  warrant  from  the  record  of  His  life  of  any  act 
by  Him  for  any  zealots  to  impose  upon  American  men 
and  women  teachers  the  physical  regimen  of  ascetic 
monks  in  the  Arabian  desert.  There  are  such  zealots  in 
our  public  and  private  schools  and  colleges  who  for 
themselves  neglect  the  modern  principles  of  personal  and 
social  hygiene  and  who  teach  others  so  both  by  example 
and  by  precept. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  city  school  superintendent  not 
many  years  ago  who  in  a  public  document  sent  to  all  his 
teachers  denounced  what  he  styled  "  coddling  health  "  in 
the  cases  both  of  teachers  and  of  pupils  as  a  "  serious  pub- 
lic evil."  The  contrary  is  the  truth.  Care  of  the  health 
of  teachers  as  the  condition  precedent  to  the  care  of  the 
health  of  all  the  people  is  an  invaluable  public  good. 

There  was  a  case  of  a  man  who  spent  many  years  of 
his  life  in  teaching  and  the  rest  of  it  in  preaching  and  in 
private  tutoring.  He  lived  to  be  ninety-seven  years  of 
age,  and  when  past  ninety  years,  occasionally  occupied 
the  pulpit  of  a  large  church  acceptably.  Up  to  ninety- 
five  years  of  age,  he  continued  to  be  a  diligent  student  of 
Latin  and  of  history.  At  eighty-eight  years  of  age,  he 
was  run  over  by  a  train,  losing  a  leg  and  suffering  other 
injuries.  At  several  times  in  his  life,  he  had  to  pass 
through  serious  troubles,  yet  he  maintained  his  health 
notwithstanding. 

This  was  no  mere  case  of  exceptional  vitality  by  inheri- 


WINNING  OLD  AGE:     SUMMARY        301 

tance.  He  won  and  kept  this  health.  He  was  physically 
stronger  at  fifty  years  of  age  than  at  twenty ;  and  at  sev- 
enty he  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  daily  efficiency  in 
work.  Until  he  was  eighty,  no  one  thought  of  him  as 
old  and  getting  ready  to  step  off  scene.  How  did  he  gain 
and  keep  his  health?  Very  much  in  the  ways  described 
in  this  book.  Even  at  ninety  years  of  age,  he  took  daily 
one-half  hour  of  exercise  with  dumb-bells;  and  though 
minus  one  leg,  he  stumped  about  in  the  open  air  not  less 
than  one  hour  every  day,  rain  or  shine  or  snow,  indiffer- 
ent to  the  storms  even  of  winter.  He  gave  time  and 
thought  to  being  well  and  strong.  His  largest  accomplish- 
ment in  life  was  at  an  age  much  later  than  most  men  and 
women  die.  In  consequence  of  his  long  life,  he  was  able 
to  render  to  the  world  all  the  service  that  was  really  in 
him.  He  used  to  say  that  what  success  he  had  was  due 
to  his  intention  to  live  out  the  whole  of  his  possible  life 
until  old  age  should  defeat  him. 

Perhaps  American  school  teachers  will  be  able  to  render 
a  far  greater  service  to  this  nation  when  we  have  all 
learned  not  to  take  our  cue  from  such  as  live  the  char- 
acteristically short  life  of  most  teachers  but  from  the  men 
and  women  who  have  met  and  overmatched  the  real  diffi- 
culties of  teaching  by  obeying  the  principles  of  a  rational 
and  self -controlled  personal  health  regimen. 

The  founder  of  all  modern  science  was  Aristotle,  the 
Greek  teacher.  What  he  said  in  effect  for  personal  hy- 
giene then  is  as  true  now  as  it  was  two  thousand  years 
ago, —  that  the  way  to  health  is  by  endurance,  fortitude, 
deliberation,  moral  choice  and  ample  thought  as  to  the 
means  for  reaching  ends.  He  censured  as  barbarian 
mere  desire  for  any  end,  even  for  health,  saying  truly  that 
the  civilized  are  known  by  their  profound  concern  as  to 
the  means  for  attaining  their  ends. 


302   THE  HEALTH  OF  THE  TEACHER 

The  purpose  of  this  book  at  every  point  throughout  has 
been  to  suggest  the  means  for  winning  and  keeping 
health  and  strength,  which  are  the  physical  sources  of 
abundant  life.  Not  only  the  teacher's  own  success  but 
the  progress  and  further  development  of  the  educational 
system  depends  upon  every  teacher  having  a  health-in- 
telligence and  a  health-conscience  such  as  will  promote 
their  happiness  and  good  cheer  in  the  daily  work.  Youth 
should  be  in  the  care  of  those  whose  lives  are  a  pleasure 
to  themselves;  obviously  joyous;  never  fretful;  and  de- 
lighting in  opportunities  to  do  more  and  more  for  young 
people.  A  healthy  teacher  is  a  daily  inspiration  to  the 
pupils ;  and  a  helpful  memory  for  all  later  years. 

More  than  one  school  staff  and  more  than  one  college 
faculty  might  profit  by  taking  as  its  line  of  march  for  a 
year, — "  Quit  you  like  men  and  be  strong." 

The  United  States  Bureau  of  Education  has  promul- 
gated a  new  motto  for  students  and  teachers  alike;  let 
us  follow  it  one  and  all, — 

HEALTH    STRENGTH    JOY 


INDEX 


Adenoids  65,  233. 

Adolescence  44,  208. 

Adrenal  glands  21,  22,  27,  42, 

82,  132,  232. 
Aeration  129,  146,  187,  189,  191, 

199. 
Ages  33,  48,  171,  189. 
Albumin  167. 
Alcoholic    stimulants    Chapter 

XXI.    See      Narcotics.     127, 

164. 
Alimentary    canal    40,    62,    65, 

125,  143.  148,  155,  158,  219. 
Amusements    97,    99    et    seq., 

Chap.  XXXIV. 
Anemia  40  et  seq.,  200,  217. 
Anesthesia  265. 
Anthropometry  39,  79. 
Appetite  47,  62,  76,  152,  159. 
Arteriosclerosis   173. 
Autointoxication  27,  71,  155. 
Autopsy  no,  195. 
Avocation  102,  260.     See  Home 

occupation. 
Awaking  140. 

Ball  games  175. 

Bathing  67,   73,    no,    n6,    143, 
241,     250,     254,     Chap. 

XXIV. 
Bathroom   185,  276. 
Bed     140.— clothing    129,     191, 

279. —  room  141,  279. 
Belts  194.  195. 
BiU-  131.    See  Liver. 
Biochemistry  24,  29. 
Birth  rate  271. 

Bladder  215.     See   Urination. 
Blood    16,    25,   94,    131,    199.— 

heat     29. —  poisoning     251. — 

pressure  32,  171,  172,  200. 


Body  coefficient  32,  50,  56,  80, 

82,  86,  92,  112,  142,  176,  237, 

297. 
Bowels    44,    46,    73,    171.    215. 

See  Evacuation. 
Brain   16,  68,  82,  99,   142,  255, 

266. 
Bread  156,  157,  160,  163. 
Breakdown   54,  62,   Chap.   VI, 

155,  277,  297. 
Breathing    178,    184,    105.     See 

Aeration,  Lungs. 
Bridges  for  teeth,  58,  218. 
Broken  arch  of  foot,  248. 

Calculi  71,  255. 
Calisthenics  56,  143,  178. 
Calories   63,    147    et    seq.,    163, 

168. 
Cancer  206,  241,  242,  262. 
Candy  143. 

Cells  is,  25,  99,  151,  241. 
Cephalic  index  38,  39. 
Cereals  22,  148,  153. 
Chemistry  148,  158. 
Children     30, —  diseases     of, 

116,  147. 
Chorea  62. 
Climate   62,    Chap.    XIII,    in.. 

188,  268,  272,  274,  209. 
Coffee     76,     132,     141,     Cha;> 

XXII.    See    Narcotics. 
Common  sense  19,  53,  73,  10 1. 

286. 
Classroom     196.     See     ^ 

architecture. 
Clothing  Chap.  XXV,  58,  68. 
Constipation  45,  73. 
Cookery  see  Diet. 
Colds  Chap.  VII,  94,  128. 
Colors  106,  197. 


303 


3°4 


INDEX 


Coma  71,  149. 
Corns  250  et  seq. 
Corsets  194,  195. 
Cosmetics  239. 
Courtship  47,  147. 

Daily  program  64,  66,  89,   93, 

99,  108,  112,  140,  183. 
Dandruff  50,  242,  245, 
Death  31,  271. 
Depilation  247. 
Diabetes  195. 
Diagnosis  3,  Chap.  Ill,  42,  48, 

59,  112,  133,  142,  238. 
Diarrhea  73. 
Diathesis,  43,   69. 
Diet  44,  46,  66,  72,  80,  97,  132, 

Chap.  XXI. 
Digestion  Chap.  V,  158. 
Diphtheria  33. 
Diseases  44,  76,   116,   145,   174, 

194,  200,  239,  262,  270. 
Disinfecting  115. 
Dreams  100,  286. 
Drinks   Chap.   XXI. 
Ductless  glands  20  et  seq.,  45, 

82.     See   Adrenal,    Pituitary, 

Thyroid. 

Ear  32,  Chap.  XXIX. 
Eating  62,  87,  Chap.  XIX. 
Eczema  186,  240,  242. 
Eggs  159. 

Emotions  21,  23,  144,  293. 
Epidemics  71,  Chap.  XV. 
Esophoria  62,  223,  225. 
Excretion  16,  71,  215,  216. 
Exercise  58,  60.    Chap.  XXIII, 

239. 

Exophoria  223. 

Evacuation  see  Bowels,  Excre- 
tion, Kidneys,  Bladder,  Uri- 
nation. 

Eye  32,  40,  62,  Chap.  XXVIII, 
270. 

Fats  67,  150. 


Fears    Chap.    XIII,    200,    212, 

295. 

Feeble-minded    122.     See    Mo- 
ron, Hypermoron. 

Feet  144,  Chap.  XXXIII. 

Fevers  33. 

Fish  160. 

Foods  161  et  seq. 

Footwear   188.    See  Shoes. 

Fruits  151,  155,  159,  160. 

Functions  54,  142,  282,  298. 

Fur  coats  192. 


Gall  bladder  132. 
Games  100,  170,  175,  259. 
Germ  plasm  18. 
Germs  17. 

Glasses  for  eyes  222. 
Goitre  21,  94. 
Gymnasium  179,  181. 

Habits  44,  97,   I37> 
Hair  Chap.  XXXII. 
Habitat  Chap.  XXXVI,  296. 
Headache  27,  32,  39,  55,  62,  114, 

194,  224. 
Health  26,  27.— control  137'. 
Heating  141,  277. 
Heart      141,      173,      176.      See 

Pulse. 
Heightened  consciousness    143. 
Heredity  34,  42,  86,  92,  205. 
Holidays    102.     See   Vacations. 
Home  life  Chaps.  XII,  XXX- 

VI.— occupation    180,   260  et 

seq. —  rearing  Chap.   IX. 
Horseback  riding  176,  291. 
Housework  169.     See  Home. 
Hosiery  194,  249,  251. 
Humidity       189,       277.        See 

Weather. 
Hypermoron  63,   93,    122,    126, 

224. 
Hydrotherapy     144,     185,     194. 

224.     See  Water. 
Hypertrophy  65,  166,  195,  264. 


INDEX 


305 


Ice  cream  153,  235. 

Idcomotor   temperament  40  et 

seq. 
Immunity  118. 

Indefatigability   127,   289,  300. 
Indigestion  55,  155. 
Infection    221,    227,    240,    243, 

270. 
Insalivation  158,  166. 
Insanity  Chap.  XI,  124,  145. 
Insomnia  76,  80,   139,  141.  19°. 

205,    See  Sleep. 
Instincts  21   et  seq.,  47,  Chap. 

XIII,   132,   166.  232,  283,  209. 
Invalidism    26,   44,   45,   61,   86, 

142,    170,    187,    198,   220,  257, 

292. 

Kidneys  67,  71,  82,  106,  252. 
Kindergarten  115. 
Kinesthesia  27,  181. 

Legumes  160. 

Life  31.     See  Germ  plasm. 

Lime  166. 

Liver    23,   24,    31,   67,    71,    142, 

149  et  seq.,   195. 
Locomotivity  27,  53. 
Lungs  52,  Chap.  VII,  94,   106, 

178. 
Lymphatics  46,  52. 

Malnutrition  33. 
Manicuring  239,  240,  242. 
Marriage  90,    180,   200  et   seq., 

271. 
Married  women  41,  180,  212. 
Massage  71,  224,  232. 
Maternal  instinct  40,  43,  44. 
Meals  152. 
Meat   23,   67,    150,    157,    161    et 

seq. 
Medicine  Chap.  XXXV. 
Melancholia  33. 
Memory  115,  148. 
Men  50,  51,  172. 
Menopause  Chap.  VII. 


Menstruation  76,  87,  88,  200  et 

seq. 
Menus  148  et  seq. 
Metabolism  24,  52,  no,  189. 
Milk  22,  151,  160. 
Mind  24,  25. 
Modesty  296,  298. 
Moron  44,  93. 
Motivation  281. 
Muscles    42,    52,    54,    143,    170, 

178,  239. 
Muscular    motor    temperament 

40  et  seq.,  147. 
Music  125,  260.     See  Singing. 

Narcotics    23,    87,    Chap.    XII, 

108,  126,  139,  142,  167  et  seq., 

Chap.  XXII,  270,  291. 
Nature  19,  20,  47,  no,  126,  138, 

166,  212,  222,  236. 
Nausea  62,  106,  224. 
Nervous   system    16,   24,   62. — 

troubles  34,  41,  47.  Chap.  VI, 

106,  139. 
Neuralgia  129,  140,  230. 
Neurasthenia  99,  124,  141. 
Neurosis  44,  205,  212. 
Norm  18,  19,  254. 
Nose  227,  228. 

Occupation  69,  96,  97,  107. 
Old       age      33,      48,      Chap. 

XXXVIII. 
Outdoors   22,   68,   81,   94*    100,    l 

139.  170,  176,  183,  254,  261. 
Overwork     62,     Chaps.     VIII, 

XII,  XVII. 
Ovum  24. 

Pain  27.  57,  266. 
Paranoia  99. 
Pasteurization   164. 
Paternal  instinct  48. 
Pathology  85,  90,  171,  215. 
Periodicities  22,  138,  245,  Chap. 

XXVI. 
Peristalsis   158. 


306 


INDEX 


Perspiration   175,  189,  239,  254. 
Phagocytes  77. 
Physical  culture  Chap.  IV. 
Physiological  rest  19,  71,   171. 
Physiopsychology    32,    39,    47, 

142,  182,  201,  207,  214. 
Pituitary  gland  24,  42,  82. 
Play     99     et     seq.,     294.     See 

Amusement. 
Pneumonia  Chap.  VII,  78,  129, 

191. 
Posture  Chap.  IV,  196. 
Potatoes  156. 

Prophylaxis   117,  123,  220,  287. 
Protein  65,  67,  144,  148,  159. 
Psychosis  88,  166,  175,  209,  210, 

212. 
Puberty  44,  208. 
Pulse    46,    104,    171,    200.     See 

Heart. 
Pyorrhea  68,  71,  Chap.  XXVII. 

Quiet  27,  126,  229,  274.  See 
Rest 

Races  of  men  19,  20,  30,  32,  34- 
40,  43-45,  49.  53,  61,  70,  75, 
78,  89,  90,  93.  97.  104,  107, 
in,  113,  115,  116,  120,  126, 
140,  147,  154,  157,  158,  171. 
192,  197,  201,  206-8,  237,  244, 
268,  271,  291,  297,  301. 

Reactions  54,  63. 

Referred  pains  57. 

Relaxation   Chap.  XXXIV. 

Renewal  17. 

Rest  155,  231,  232,  257. 

Rheumatism  44. 

Rubber  overshoes  192,  249, 
253. 

Sabbatical  year  87. 
Salads  153. 
Salt  148,  158  et  seq. 
Sanitarium  152,  221,  291. 
Sanitation      78,       112,      Chap. 
XVIII,  186,  269. 


School    architecture    130,    188, 

281  — room     Chap.     XVIII, 

196. 
Sea  foods  148,  163. 
Seasons  138,  203,  204. 
Sedentary  temperament  26,  40 

et  seq. 
Self-alienation  53,  287. 
Senility  58.     See  Old  age. 
Sensorium  125. 
Sex  50  et  seq.,  87,  Chap.  XVI 

171,  207. 
Shingles  241. 

Shoes  57,  148,   177,   *93,  249. 
Sinewy  motor  temperament  40, 

73  et  seq. 
Singing  77,  233,  234,  260.     See 

Music. 
Skin      187,     189,      194,     Chap. 

XXXI  239. 
Sleep   26,    46,    66,    72,    76,    80, 

Chap.  XX,  174,  202,  230,  279. 
Soap  186,  218,  239. 
Somatology  24,  36,  38. 
Somesthesia    16,    Chap.    II,   44, 

46,  73,  107,  131,  165,  302. 
Sperm  24. 
Spinal     curvature     Chap.     IV, 

182,  211,  230. 
Starch  67. 
Static  electricity  71. 
Stomach  87,  131,  154,  155. 
Sugar  22,  150,  163. 
Sunlight  197,  278. 
Supper  25,  149. 
Suprarenal  glands,  see  Adrenal 

glands. 
Surgery    69,    114,    242,    Chap. 

XXXV,  266. 
Surplus    nervous    energy    235, 

285. 
Swimming  144,  175,  228. 
Symptoms  21,  33,  78,  145.     See 

Chap.  III. 

Teeth    17,    40,    58,    67,    Chap. 
XXVII. 


INDEX 


30/ 


Temperaments  26,  40,  69,  81, 
U3,  U9»  145,  188,  See  Ideo- 
motor,  Muscular,  Sinewy, 
Vital,  Sedentary,  Maternal, 
Instincts. 

Temperature,  body  28,  29,  63, 
191,— room  188,  238. 

Thermometer  32. 

Therapy  108,  127,  224,  240. 

Thought  25,  53,  202,  207,  289. 

Throat  52,  118,  Chap.  XXX. 

Thyroid  gland  21,  94,  232. 

Tonsils  68,  264. 

Toxemia  16,  71. 

Traits  18,  34,  37,  39.  63.  See 
Temperaments, 

Tumors  85. 

Typhoid  fever  25,  33,  269,  276, 
282. 

Tuberculosis  56,  Chaps.  VII, 
XII,  112,  237- 

Underwear  Chap.  XIII,  188, 
190. 

Uric  acid  67,  149,  233. 

Urination  215,  216.  See  Kid- 
neys. 

Vacation  124,  183,  204. 
Vegetables  157. 


Venereal  disease  123,  240. 
Ventilation   129,  146,   186.     See 

Aeration. 
Viscera  52,  148,  173. 
Vital     corpulent     temperament 

36,  40  et  seq.,  84,  131. 
Vital  reserve  55,  169,  235. 
Vital   statistics  204,  268. 
Vitamens  151. 
Voice  Chap.  XXX. 


Wakefulness  142. 

Walking  57,  174,  W7,  183.  258. 

Water    22,    144,    Chap.    XXII, 

178,  218,   225,   228,   234,  238, 

240,  250,  273. —  to  drink,  167. 
Weather  76,   Chap.   XIII,   138, 

190,  199.  272,  274,  284. 
Women  30,  41,  50,  51.  53,  88. 

172,  174,  193. 
Woolens   188,   192,  279, 
Worry    26,    63,    121,    245,    256, 

Chap.  XXXVII. 
Wounds  17,  18,  25. 

X-rays  59,  219. 

Youth    33.    48,    180,    208,    212, 
292,  299. 


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